Shirred t shirt makeover

THANK YOU to everyone who has offered to guest post! Thanks to you, I'll be able to have my entire week filled with posts AND still get everything done I need to. Huzzah! Look for some amazing guest posts this week. Seriously, there are some wickedly talented ladies out there.

You might remember that I was in quite the funk just a little bit ago. I had lost my mojo and was so blah for few weeks. My friend {Crystal} helped get me out of it with a challenge to makeover a t shirt! This was such a fun challenge! I was so excited to coordinate with Crystal on this! It really helped spark my creativity, it helped me get my mojo back!

I love how it turned out! Flared waist, flared sleeves, shirring, pleats, color contrast, yay! I was inspired by the colors of fall, I can't wait for it to get a little cooler!

I also model part time. True story! Ok...not a true story. You wanna make one? You will need:

• T shirt a size or two larger than what you normally wear
• Scissors 
• Disappearing ink pen, mark be gone pen
• Rotary cutter/mat (not necessary, but will be helpful when cutting hems off!)
• Extra wide bias tape, four yards. I used a three yard pack and I was one inch short! (NOTE: ribbing would have probably been better here, but I didn't have any)
• Elastic thread
• Ball point needle for sewing with knits
• Sewing stuff: machine, matching thread, extra needles, all that stuff. 

And just as a note, I used 1/2" seams for this whole project unless otherwise noted.

Start with a t shirt a size or two larger than the size you wear to give you a little wiggle room and more fabric to work with.This is just a plain old brown t shirt from Jo-ann, got it on sale! (Still on sale, you can buy it {here})

Take that shirt that fits and turn it right side out. Shove the sleeves in and lay it directly centered on your t shirt. Using a fabric marking pen, trace around your shirt with a 5/8ish inch or so for seam allowance. I decided to flare out the bottom of the shirt, and make it a little more flowy.

Cut it out! Fold it in half before cutting to ensure that both sides are even. (It's much more flared I just couldn't get it all in the picture)

Pin and sew up the sides (right sides together!) using a zig zag stitch so the fabric can still stretch. Don't sew through the arm holes, unless you want to go for the straight jacket type look.

Next, sleeves. I used the original sleeve because I wanted it to flare out slightly too. To make it fit, I ruffled it a bit. To do this, run the sleeve through the sewing machine using the longest straight stitch possible and 1/4" seam allowance, leaving long threads. Then, gently pull the bobbin thread, and it'll start to gather! Ruffle it up until the sleeve is the same size as the arm hole.

Pin the sleeve on, right sides together, and sew. I like to double stitch my sleeves, since they tend to get pulled on a lot. Sleeves: good! Collar: not so much. Had to get rid of that t shirty collar.

Collar, meet scissors! I cut right under the original ribbing.

I added binding around the collar, to help it lay more flat. It may look funny in the back...that's because I was literally 1 inch short of binding! I however, am too stubborn to let it fly, so I created one tiny little pleat in the back to make up that extra inch.

See? One little pleat. Nothing fancy, but it did the job! And added a little bit extra interest. Ignore the terrible binding job. My getting way too long hair will hide it.

I also added binding to the bottom! I am lazy and I didn't feel like hemming one single thing. :D

When I thought I was done, I realized that something was missing. I thought about it a little, and then decided to add a bit of shirring right under the bust!

I had never successfully executed shirring, so this was rather exciting! I followed {this} awesome tutorial to get it right. I loved it, I can't wait to use this technique again!

Professional model. I tell ya. 

If this was confusing at all check out {this} t shirt redo I did last winter. It covers everything much more thoroughly. I was a little lazy and didn't go over it as much in depth this time around since it's very similar. 

Linking up {here}

Headband Week- T shirt headband and linky party!

UPDATE: Linky is now open! Sorry about that!

I've got a super simple headband to wrap up headband week! This one was inspired by a headband that I already owned. Actually, I totally just copied it because I love it. It very comfy and is thick enough to hold ALL my hair back, even those little flyaways.

 This is how I wish I could be every moment of summer. At the pool all day in my super cute bathing suit, hair full of lemon juice (natural lightening agent!) and summer storms. Bliss I tell you. Oh yeah, headband. Cool huh? Wanna make one? This is the only one I busted out the sewing machine for but the whole thing only took a few minutes.

You will need:

• Old t shirt (as you can see I already took a chunk outta this one)
• Rotary mat
• Ruler
• Rotary cutter
• Sewing machine and all that stuff that goes with it

Cut a strip of t shirt 2 inches wide and 19 inches long. Fold it in half.

Line up your ruler and cut three long cuts through the center of your strip. Each a half inch apart and two inches from the edge. Open it up and gently pull. This will "roll up" each of those strips to give it more of a headband look rather than a cut t shirt.

Fold it in half again, right sides together, and sew with a 5/8"-1" seam. This will depend on how much your headband stretched out. If it stretched out a lot, sew a bigger seam, if it didn't stretch much, sew with a smaller seam.

Open up that seam, no need to iron, just press it open with your fingers.

Use a very small stitch and sew up each side to really give the headband some security. I used red thread so it would be easier to see.

And that's it! Pull all that hair out of your face and make a zillion more, because these are the ultimate hair-out-of-face headband. I like that the different layers make it a little more interesting than just elastic running across your headband.

In case you missed any of them, check out all the headbands from Headband Week!

{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, {5}, {6}, {7}

Ok....I'm really sad headband week is over. I have so many more ideas so I might be doing this again! But in the meantime, I'll have your lovely projects to admire. :) Link up as many headband posts as you want! New posts, old posts, tutorials, what I wore, whatever! As long as headbands are the theme it's game for this party! I would really super appreciate it if you grabbed one of my buttons and helped spread the word, but it's not a requirement. I'll leave it open for a week, and have some features next week!

Tutorial Tuesday- Ruffly top

Thank you sooo much to everyone that helped me out of my funk yesterday. You guys = so awesome. Sadly, the day ended with one of my favorite dogs in the world being put down. I was completely devastated, she wasn't my dog but I'm not really a dog person so for me to actually love a dog is a huge deal. It was so sad. But, I watched a lot of funny youtube videos and spent a few hours making Oreo balls, most of which went to the family who lost their dog. (I snuck a lot just a few and man are they delicious!! Thanks Courtney!) But really, thanks so much for all your comments, it honestly did help my day get so much better. :)
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Well, enough people asked for a tutorial for my Sew & Tell/American Crafters entry, so here it is! It didn't win either contest, so hopefully you're still ok making a "loser" shirt. :)

I couldn't come up with a better name than "ruffly top," so if you've got a better name let me hear it! Aside from breaking my sewing machine this top wasn't very difficult to make! It only took a few basic sewing skills and almost all straight stitches! To make one, you'll need:

• A cotton t shirt one size bigger than what you wear (mine was a men's shirt, so you'd probably be safe with two sizes larger.)
• A shirt that fits
• Disappearing ink pen
• 1/4" elastic
• Sewing machine, matching thread, pins, scissors, seam ripper, and all that jazz

I started out with this $2 men's tee (gotta love target clearance!) I knew the little guy had potential hidden under there.

The first thing was getting rid of that little pocket. Not that I don't like pockets (I saved it for another shirt!) I just didn't think it would go with the shirt. The seam ripper showed it who was boss.

Next, introduce your sleeves to the seam ripper as well. Don't cut them off please; unpick them. You're going to use them later! You should now have a sleeveless, too-big shirt.

 

Put your shirt on, and mark an inch and a half below your bust. Take off the shirt, draw a line across the shirt where you marked it, and cut all the way across. Set aside the bottom half, you'll get back to it.

Take the shirt that fits and turn it inside out. Tuck the sleeves in and lay it on your larger shirt. Make sure to center it and line up the shoulder seams!

Take your disappearing ink pen and mark a half inch all the way around the shirt that fits you. This is the seam allowance.

Cut along the lines you just drew. You should end up with a shape similar to the one you had before, just your size!

Get really excited about your new shirt because it's starting to take shape!

Make sure it's inside out, and pin all the way up the sides of your shirt, but not the armholes! (I'm an obsessive pinner ok?) Sew in place using a ZIG ZAG stitch and 1/2" seam allowance. If you use a straight stitch, the shirt won't be able to stretch, so make sure it's a zig zag! Figure out why your cats love to get into your crafts.

I totally forgot to take a picture of the next step. Oops! Take each of your sleeves and using the longest straight stitch on your machine, stitch all the way around the edges (not the hemmed edge at the bottom, the unpicked edge at the top) using 1/4" seam. Don't back stitch and leave long threads. You should now have half a sleeveless shirt and two sleeves.

This is the part where you need to pay attention! To make ruffles, gently pull on the long threads and the fabric will start to bunch. Slowly push those ruffles to the top of the sleeve (opposite the seam). Push all of them up there! If you look carefully, there are almost no ruffles towards the bottom of the sleeve. All of them are pushed to the top. This creates a flirty little ruffle and ensures you won't have bunches in your arm pits. Ugh. Keep ruffling as much as you can until the circumference of the sleeve matches the circumference of the arm hole. Do this for both sleeves.

 Pin the right sides of the sleeves to the right side of the arm holes, matching up the seams at the bottom. If you've never sewn a sleeve before, don't worry! Just sew slowly, reposition if you need to, and breathe.

I tried the top on at this point to see if it fit and check out how it looked, and man oh man it looked soooo funny like this. Especially the sleeves, like a bad remake of Victorian era clothing. I knew I had to do something to fix it.

I cut off the hemmed edge of the sleeve because it was too t-shirt-y. I planned on shirring the unfinished edges, but this is the point where my stupid machine broke. (Since I am unable to give you a shirring tutorial, click here for Disney's fantastic tutorial if you want to ta).

Stupid machine ripped a hole through my sleeve. I had to cut off an extra sliver from both sleeves because of this! Take a day to freak out about your broken machine and let your stress subside.

I tried this next method with two different braided elastic but the old machine I borrowed from my MIL couldn't handle it. So I dug through my stash, and ended up using this weird bathing suit elastic that the lady at Hobby Lobby said would work like fold over elastic (which they didn't have, btw) and it SO DIDN'T. Anyway...back to the tute. Use some thin (1/4" or so) elastic for this next part. On the inside of the sleeve, stitch the elastic down to the seam and make sure it's secure. Then, continue sewing over the elastic, but pull on it (the elastic, that is). The harder you pull, the more ruffled your sleeve will be. Pull and sew normally, it will take a decent amount of work to keep the sewing straight because of the pulling, and you'll need to help the machine feed it through, but it should work just fine. Sew all the way around the edge of both seams.

See how the elastic is still flat but the fabric underneath is all ruffled. That means you're doing it right!You're done with the sleeves.

Go find the bottom half of the shirt. Along the top, cut edge, sew two gather stitches, one using 1/2" seam, one using 1/4" seam. (Remember how you did it on the sleeves? Use the longest straight stitch, don't backstitch, leave long threads.) If this part is confusing, see this tutorial I did earlier, I explain it a little better there.

This part is just what I like to do, so feel free to skip it. I like to ruffle the entire thing up as much as it will go, and then slowly pull out the ruffles until the circumferences match. I find it so much easier to pull out ruffles than to keep pulling for them to match. But, whatever works for you.

Pin the right side of the "skirt" to the right side of the "shirt" and using a zig zag stitch, sew all the way around using a 5/8" seam (anything smaller and your gathering stitch will peak through!) This is the point where I thought it would be done, but when I tried it on it still looked too t-shirt-y, and the hubs and I both decided it was the ribbed collar that made it look weird.

 I thought and thought about what kind of neckline I wanted. V-neck seemed too "sexy" for this sweet top, round neck too plain, square neck too angular, so I finally settled on a sweetheart neckline. I took an existing shirt I had for a pattern and traced along the edge. I took my scissors to it and....

Wah bam!! Love it. I also tied a ribbon around the waistline to give it a little something extra. Whaddya think? Is this Valentines Day date material? I know the tute might have been a little confusing, so please email me with any questions. And don't forget to check out all the parties I link up to!

Rosette headband, a hubby craft!

As I mentioned in my last post, my SIL's birthday is this weekend. I made her a horse charm bracelet, and since buying the materials was a little pricey, I forced encouraged David to make her something to save money! I've seen rosette headbands everywhere lately and thought it would be a great gift for an almost 12 year old. So we busted out the glue gun and felt and tore apart an old t-shirt.

(Snickers) ok, so it's not perfect (I don't think he's ever used a glue gun before....) but for the hubs, I think he did a great job! It was a fun project to do together, and I only walked him through it and helped him glue everything together! He did the rest, I'm so proud of him!

I didn't use a tutorial for this, I've just seen pictures and winged it from there. I'll probably write up a tutorial for this one later. Stay tuned!