Repurposing Week: Day 6 Shirt

I have an OLD shirt that I love!  But it was white and the arm pits are so yellow now that I can't even wear it out of the house.  I mean, I have had the shirt for like 4 years but still....I have a hard time getting rid of clothes.  There were a couple of things about the shirt I just loved.  One thing I didn't like was that the sleeves were a little too small.  Once I had worn the shirt for a couple of hours they would stretch out and then my undergarments would show.  I decided to recycle my shirt.  However, I didn't want to completely get rid of it so I decided to just completely re-make it.  How you may ask?  Well, I have a bunch of white REALLY nice cotton shirts from my mother in law that she gave me a while ago but they are all huge on me.  I have done a couple of things with them.  I made the beanie from the beginning of the week.  Usually I just slept in them.  I decided I would turn one of these shirts into my old shirt.  This is the old shirt

See how nasty the pits are?  they look worse in person, trust me.  Gross I know.  I had a picture of the plain white shirt I am using but my memory card wasn't in my camera when I took it.  DOH!  Don't you just hate that?  Please tell me I am not the only one who does that?

Any ways.  Like I said I took some pictures but my memory card wasn't in my camera so I have to just tell you what I did for a while until I can update you with a picture.  I took the old shirt and laid it on top of the new shirt.  I cut the new shirt to match the old shirt.  I cut the sides up and I cut the sleeves off ( the new shirts sleeves are big so this helps me alter them if I cut them off and resew them on. )  I cut all the way up to the shoulders and then left the shirt sewn at the top.  I then too the old shirt and cut the lace off from the middle.  I wanted to transfer it to the new shirt.  I then pinned it down and sewed it to my new shirt in the exact same spot.  Next comes the fun part!  The thing I LOVE about this shirt is the tie around the middle that makes it umpire wasted.  I LOVE umpire wasted stuff.  Makes your boobs look big and your waste look smaller if done right.  What's not to like about that?!

This can be done to ANY shirt that is too big around for you.  A big t-shirt for example.  Turn the shirt wrong side out and figure out where you want the tie to go.  I use the sides of the shirt I cut off and cut strips long enough for the sides.  I pinned it down.  AFTER I pinned it down I realized that I don't want to sew this down without putting in ties themselves.  Since I am using an old shirt I didn't have to find something. If you are making it from scratch you can do a number of things.  You can use shoe laces, lace, ribbon or you can make your own.  Making your own would be a pain but it can be done.  Pin that down then pin the strips on top like this

Here is a close up of what it looks like ( but this is before I realized I needed to put the strings in first.  )

Now sew down both sides of each.  Notice I didn't do the center of the shirt because I have the lace embellishment there.  If you are doing this on a new shirt, you can leave the center free or do it all the way across.  Be careful NOT to sew the lace down to the fabric.  You want it to be free inside the casing you are making.  Once those sides are done, I did the same thing to the back of the shirt. This time it was a continuous strip all the way along the back.

Once you have that done you are ready to sew the shirt back together along the sides.  DO NOT SEW ACROSS THE MIDDLE WHERE YOU PUT YOUR NEW STRINGS.  Make sure it looks like the picture here

I would sew JUST to where the strips started.  Remember we are using a stretch cotton so it will not ravel if you leave the end unsewn.  If you are using a fabric, you are going to want to use fray check or sew a little border there before you sew the sides together.

Once I did the sides, I went ahead and added the sleeves back on.  If you have never done this before it's actually pretty easy. Check out the blog Make It and Love It   She does shirt refashions all the time and gives you step by step instructions on how to do it.

Now you have a shirt!!!   Check out how much longer the sleeves are!  No worries about under clothes showing now.

I was pleased with the results.  THEN I decided to take it one step further. I have SO many white shirts.  I love them. There is just something about a plain white shirt that I LOVE.  I decided to dye this one though.  I had bought a yellow dye forever ago and then never used it.  I thought about using just half of the box of dye and after seeing how yellow it made my stuff I wish I had just used half. This is a little TOO yellow for me but that's okay.

Sorry for the crappy pictures.  It was night time and my house was dark.  If I wasn't lazy I could have gotten out my tripod and set it up and taken a better one but I AM lazy!  haha  I had my ISO bumped up way too high and that's why the picture is so grainy.  I also look really lumpy because I forgot to pull down the tank top I had underneath my shirt when I put the new one on.  Oh well....

The other thing I love about my new shirt is how high up in is on my chest.  The old one would show a little too much.  Especially when bending over and once it got stretched out.

Hopefully you guys found this post useful.  Get a big shirt and make it over.  It is really easy.  This took me about an hour or two.  It's hard to say because I was doing it when the kids were up and so it was off and on for the whole day pretty much.

I have one more make over for you.  I know this one was a day late because I was too tired last night to do it.  So my last one might have to wait until tomorrow.  We shall see how every one is doing later today.  I have two different things that are half done to post and I just have to decide which one to finish and post!

Happy Sunday.