My friend, Christie and I picked up a couple of these tunic/dress/whatever at Old Navy a couple of weeks ago. 50% off of 50% off of clearance. Who cares if it wasn’t my style, it came to $2.25!
I cut it up, shirred a bit, reattached some stuff, and here it is now
My fourth entry for Made By Rae’s contest, it will also be my already-completed-before-even-assigned assignment for Raglan Sleeves, the lesson that time forgot but we'll get to next week. Pinky swear.
(my four year old took these pictures)
And here is how I did it
I laid a shirt that fits me well in the length on top of the shirt dress, at the bottom hem.
Then I marked the neckline
Folded it in half
And cut
I wanted to do a raglan sleeve (next week’s sleeve lesson, so my assignment for it is already done! woo hoo me!) So I cut the sleeves off the top
And used the cut negative piece of fabric as a guide in aligning how to cut the sleeves for raglan style
Then I reattached the sleeves to the new neckline
Next, I decided to shirr. So I put the shirt on and marked with straight pins the area I wanted shirred, from just below chest to just below waist
Then I took off the shirt and marked the pinned areas with a pencil (on the inside of the shirt)
And started to shirr.
I’ve seen a lot of tutorials on this, but when I Googled shirring with my actual machine. None of the awesome tutorial methods were recommended. In fact, I read I could permanently throw off the tension of my machine. Not something I was real excited to risk. So I decided to follow the instructions in my owners manual and shirr by doing a bridge stitch over the top of the elastic thread
Times 17 times all the way around the shirt
Then pulled the loose ends of the elastic
Shirred, baby!
I didn’t get photos of the last things, but I ended up cutting the very bottom of the shirt off, trimming it down a few inches, bringing it in at the side seams, and re sewing it to the bottom of the shirring.
For the neckline, I sewed a casing all the way around the opening, and threaded 1/4 inch braided elastic. I am in love with the new neckline.
I know it’s simple and not really all that amazing, but I really do love it. A lot.
This is totally a shirt I will wear all the time. I LOVE it. Have I said that?
Totally worth the $2.25.
9 comments:
I love the shirring! It turned out totally cute! You are so creative, seriously. Whippin' up all these tops. Good luck with the contest!!!
no clue what shirring is, it's cute though
this looks like such a great comfy shirt.
Good way to get around conventional shirring! It does look really, really comfortable.
You are so cute! I love what you did with that. I was very attracted to those things to for some reason. I wish I had picked one up.
AH! I bought two of those from Old Navy too! And other than sleeping in them they're not good for much else. I think I'm gonna hack them up and repurpose them into shirts. Thanks!
oooooooh Shirring is genius! and now I think it is something I could actually do! Thank you!! Thank you!!
Also I LOVE your blog design.. I am shopping for a new one and yours is inspiring me..
Such a good idea, buy big and cut it up. I've tried to keep my eye open for XL sizes for that exact reason, ON seems to be a good place to look! I love the shirt you made out of this.
Ahh! What a fabulous idea. I can't do boatneck since I have no shoulders to hold the shirt on my body, so this is a great idea if I ever find a really cheap too big item! This turned out so cute!
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