Remaking my clothes...

Okay, a couple years ago I was at Forever 21 during one of their ridiculous sales and I saw a rack with $3 t-shirts. They were just average looking, flimsy white, nothing too special, shirts but I bought 2 of them because they were cheap. I never really liked them all that much and I've been thinking about what to do with them ever since. Today, Colby fell asleep shortly after his 9am feeding and Taylor Bug and Jacks were playing together so well (jumping on the couch etc.) that I was actually able to get out my sewing machine. Yay! Scott got me a Singer Heavy Duty commercial grade machine for Christmas. I cried when I opened it.  Anyway, I found my two average white t-shits and went to work and thought I would post a tutorial here incase anyone else has some old shirts they want to have fun with.

Here's what I did...
First, I cut the neck off the shirt I wanted to use as my base (I just left that part unfinished). Then, because the shirt as a whole was too short for my taste, I cut about a 5in section off the bottom of the other shirt to attach to the bottom of the base shirt. I also cut several strips (about 1 or 2in wide) off the extra shirt to use as embellishments.

Next, I put the lengthening strip inside the bottom of the base shirt, matched the seams and pinned it. I guess it's kinda weird that I didn't cut the hem off the bottom of the base shirt, but I'm lazy and it ended up cute anyway. 

After pinning, I put my machine on a wide surger-type stitch and sewed the two pieces together.

This is the fun part... The embellishing! I wanted a long ruffle down the front of my shirt. In order to do this I upped the tension on my machine to the highest number and increased my stitch length to the longest it would go. This makes it so the fabric going through the machine automatically ruffles up. Just don't backstitch and be sure to leave yourself a LONG piece of thread on either end of your fabric. You will need the extra thread to spread your ruffles out because it will be very tightly bunched on the other side of the needle. To start, center the first strip of fabric under the presser foot and start sewing. When you get close to the end of that strip, overlap the next strip a bit and keep feeding it through. Attach as many pieces as you need till you have a long enough piece for your shirt.  I did a long piece and then a shorter one so I could have 2 ruffles.

Place the ruffles how you want to the front of your shirt with pins.

For an extra little embellishment use the collar you cut off the top of the shirt to make a flower. I put it through the machine on the high tension setting so it bunched up. Then, I just shaped it into a flower.

Return the machine to normal tension and stitch length settings. Sew your ruffles to the front of the shirt, being sure to backstitch this time so they don't come loose. It takes a little finesse to get the ruffles under the presser foot, so go slow. 

After the ruffles are done put your flower where you want and tack it down by hand with a needle and thread. I also attached a small square of cotton on top of the flower stitches inside my shirt with a bit of hot glue - just for some extra stability.

Voila! New Shirt.

For washing, I'll probably machine wash it inside out and just not put it in the dryer.

Here it is on me. I'm so happy. I got a fun new thing to wear without spending any money. My husband thought it was super cute too. He asked me where I bought it. Hee hee  :D