Sunday, April 11, 2010

New Old Shirt

On Fridays at school, we have color day. We don't have to wear a staff shirt, but we try to wear our school colors. Our staff shirts are men's t-shirts, which are never flattering. I was tired of mine, and I wanted to revamp this shirt into something I would like to wear. I found this website that has several tutorials on embellishing t-shirts, which helped me to make this shirt.

  • I first decided to cut off the bottom edge of my shirt. I tried it on and and folded it up until it hit where I felt it was flattering, and cut it off. It was 3".
  • Next, I pulled out my patterns and found a scoop neck that I liked. I cut my neckline to that shape. I did this both on the front and back, but then thought I ruined it because the back of the neckline should have been higher. I finally realized I could gather the neck edge which would also bring it in so the sleeve seams would actually be on my shoulders. I also finished the neck off with a strip of binding to make it more secure.

  • Using the cut off edge of the t-shirt, I cut an 1 1/4" strip, then gathered it down the middle. I arranged these strips on the front of the shirt to my liking, which also hid the logo.
  • Next I cut a 1" strip and gathered it down the middle and wound it up to make the flowers. More details for making the flowers can be found on the website I linked above.

  • I still had a bit of the remaining logo on the back of the shirt. I cut a little strip of the leftover ruffle and sewed it over the logo. You can see a bit of it peaking out in this picture.
  • Last, I finally tried it on again, rolled the sleeves until they fell where I like them, measured, and cut them off. Again, it was 3".

Now I have a shirt I would be happy to wear anywhere on any day of the week. I'm now shopping in my closet and in my scraps to revamp more of my wardrobe. I can't wait to redo another shirt.

3 comments:

  1. That is so stinkin cute! Look at you go! I used to make my shirts more fited by sewing up the sides and down the sleeve an inch or two. Its also fun to embelish shirts by taking strips of different colors (2 or 3) stacking them and sewing them on right down the middle of the stack. When you wash them, the edges curl and show off the layers. Fun for team/school colors!

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