Tailoring a Tank Top

As always, my friend T is my best thrifting buddy, and when shopping a last month, she spotted this cute tank in perfect colors for me, gorgeous late summer/early autumn, moody rusts, mustards, and blues. This top was $15 at Goodwill, compared to $40 new. 

The one problem is the straps are too long. As a short person with a proportionately short torso, an un-altered tank top is a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen.

So first step is to get out the handy seam ripper. I remove just a few stitches over each strap and a few interior stitches until the strap is fully removed.

If you've never used a seam ripper, and you have any plans to try sewing, mending, or reuse old items for the fabric, it's an absolute game changer. It will help you remove inevitable bad stitches as you are learning, and will help you deconstruct items without losing fabric due to cutting off seams.

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Once you've carefully removed the strap, cut off the length you need to shorten it by. I needed to remove 2" from each. Then insert your shortened strap back into the hole it came out of. 

Now, for small spaghetti straps like these, we could hand-sew them to reattach them, but I used my sewing machine as a quick option. You want to pass over the strap at least twice to lock it in place and re-close the hole we opened.

If you did a decent job of color-matching or coordinating your thread, it will be hardly noticeable. 

Now, wear your altered tank top with confidence. In the summer, I'll pair this with ankle jeans and sandals. In the fall, I'll add a blazer or cardigan and pumps. 

All in all, I'm out about 10 minutes of labor to make sure I have a top that is custom fit for me!

Making the Most of Summer Strawberries

Nothing says early summer like some ripe juicy strawberries. 

To make the most of your strawberries, first, change the way you are cutting the tops off. If you are still cutting straight across the top, you are losing quite a bit of that juicy goodness. 

Switch to a strawberry huller like this:

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A huller is super easy to use. Simply push the button to expand the claw, insert into the top of the strawberry, release the button to close the claw, and twist to remove the leaves and a small amount of white pulp.

Next, you can use the stems too! The leaves have been studied for nutritional value, and are not only edible by humans, but also contain vitamins, antioxidents, and digestive benefits. 

So how should you use them? 

Blend: use the whole strawberry when you make a smoothie, or incorporate the greens into a pesto.

Infuse: add the tops to simple syrup or vinegar for extra flavor.

Soak: use the fresh tops in infused water, or dried tops as tea.

This 16oz glass of water has 5 strawberry tops, leaving a light refreshing strawberry taste after about 10 minutes.

Cheers to the summer fruit season!