clothing Archives - Page 7 of 13

(V-)necking.

After I tracked down the shirt to remodel for July’s Craft Challenge, which was hiding in the “remodel or eliminate” bag in the closet (clever), I had to decide what to do with it. It was just about the right size (if boxy, and with that unpleasantly small neck opening) so I couldn’t do anything that required extra fabric (I had thought at first that I could perhaps turn it into a swimsuit coverup, but it didn’t have enough coverage). I trolled through Pinterest boards and other compendia linked from Sewing Tidbits and came across a tutorial on turning a crew neck t-shirt into a V-neck.

That sounded like a good place to start. Actually, changing the color sounded like a better place to start – I figured if I ever planned to dye it, it would be better to do so at the beginning. I don’t have a before-before picture, but you can imagine the standard t-shirt heather gray.

To obtain material for the new collar, I shortened the shirt, which helped with fit as well. The plan was to change the collar and then reassess fit before re-hemming the bottom, and as I expected the v-neck helped the fit substantially – so much so that all I did afterward was re-hem. I took 4.25″ off the bottom, in addition to the 1.5″ or so that came off when I removed the hem to make the collar.

For the collar attachment I used a narrow, short zigzag, but I topstitched with a straight stitch. For the hem I dug out my trusty double needle. The end product looks a little boxy on the hanger, but loose and comfortable on me.

Remake your T-shirts

My blogging partner has chosen the theme for July’s craft challenge on our local fibercraft blog: Tee Shirt Rehab. As you’ll recall, last time it was a motif; this time it’s a material. I still have a t-shirt or three that need something done with them, despite making one into an apron recently.

The post on UVFC has several links for each of four possible approaches: altering, decorating, making into a new garment, or making into a non-garment. You’ll see my project (or projects?) here as the month goes on but please feel welcome to play along – even if you’re not local.

Refashioned smock

Shopping a ten-cent sale for alterations class props, I came across a denim shirt. Here I am rocking it, wet hair, and a pretty fab head cold, if I do say so myself:

Something about the artist smock styling drew me in; periodically I decide I want a denim layer, and the price, while not ten cents, was right, so I bought it. However, it’s just not quite…. just not quite. Its sleeves are too short to be full-length and too long to be three-quarter length. It’s not remotely fitted but not loose enough to count as A-line or even just flowy. And there’s just something meh about it style-wise. Bordering on schlumpy, even.

I don’t typically go in for three-quarter-length sleeves, but they are more appropriate for an artist’s smock, so I folded the sleeves up to gauge a good length and cut them off. After picking a fabric out of my stash to make all my adjustments, I covered the cut edge of each sleeve with a band of fabric. Better.

To move the shirt from “awkwardly loose” to “intentionally loose” I remembered the bell-bottom trick of inserting a triangular panel into a seam and did so with each of the side seams. Not too much; hopefully just enough to keep the shirt from hanging up on my behind all the time.

I didn’t plan ahead past this point; I had some ideas for other alterations but figured I would see how it looked before making any decisions. And it looked pretty good! I was much happier with the silhouette.

However, something was still missing. I thought about doing something to the pockets, adding a strip of my fabric just outside the button placket on each side, doing something up at the yoke… but I didn’t want it to be too flashy or busy. Then it came to me: buttons!

Finding new buttons turned out to be a big job. The hubs came to help and we found a bunch we liked pretty well – but had at most 6 in stock, while I needed 7. I could have made 5 work with different buttons on the pockets, but nothing seemed to go together well enough for that. Finally after going up and down the button aisle repeatedly I pulled a few different styles off the rack and we chose some shiny black ones with silver paint spatters of a sort. Except better and less ’80s than that description makes them sound. Take a look:

And they were just what the doctor ordered. I had to open up the buttonholes a little, but I happened to have matching thread in my stash to finish the edges, so that was straightforward. I did the button sewing by machine, actually; pulled the top threads through to the inside afterward, tied them in a square knot with the bottom threads and wound them around the stitching and between the layers of fabric a ways.

But without further ado, the finished product!