Frumpy Shirt Refashion and Tutorial

Ever realize you haven’t posted a guest post?  This was one from Cheri’s blog, I Am Momma—Hear Me Roar, during her Refashionista even last fall.  Thought I’d bring it on home!

I found this thrifted shirt that was too big and a bit frumpy, and turned it into something that I love.

The tie-neck was what appealed to me initially so I kept that feature and got to work on the rest.

I’m sure there are more correct ways of altering a shirt to fit, but here is how I do it every time. First, I needed to take in the sides and the arms were a bit too large as well. I like to try on the shirt and get an idea how much I need to take off. Remember that it is always better to sew little by little—I’d much rather not have to unpick! You can see how I curve the stitching so that I will get a better fit around the bust and waist.

Try it on and see if you still need to take it in a bit. I needed to and so I just stitched with my pressure foot edge along the already-stitched line. This way it’s little by little and I don’t end up taking the shirt in too much. Repeat on other side of shirt.

Now for the shoulder seams. It was too large on the shoulders, so I took the top of the sleeve and sewed about a 1/4” stitch from the original seam.

You can see I only sewed about 2”- 3” down either side of the middle of the shoulder. Since I’m not sewing too far in, the sleeve will still have that nice gathered portion at the shoulder.

Next we’ll do the sleeves. I cut off the bottom portion first. Then I cut a 4” piece of the sleeve to use as the cuff. So you’ll have two pieces now for the sleeve cuffs.

I figured out where I wanted the cuff to fall and measured around my arm to make sure it would be big enough.

I pinned the cuff where it needed to be sewn to fit my arm, and zig-zag stitched the edge after cutting off the excess (next 3 pictures).

I folded each cuff in half so the wrong sides were together, right sides out, still forming a circle.

I tried on the shirt again and took note where I wanted the shirt to fall, minus the cuff portion and cut off the excess fabric.

See how my cuff is smaller than my sleeve?

I sewed a basting stitch around the arm-hole and gather by pulling on the strings until it is the same size as the cuff.

I pinned the cuff onto the gathered portion, matching up seams and placing the raw edges together evenly.

I stitched 1/4” and zig-zag or serge the edges to help control fraying.

And there you have it! A really easy way to refashion a shirt. It looks much better now!

 

Even better belted.

And my favorite—with a cardigan and belt!

Such a quick and easy refashion!  So next time you see a shirt that has great fabric or great details, don’t pass it up because the fit isn’t right or it’s too big.  Chances are you can work with it for a few minutes for something great!

Bike Basket: Tutorial

This was post I wrote for Kate’s Ruffle Series a few weeks ago. 

 

I know I’ve done a couple variations of bike baskets (check the tutorial archives), but I’m kind of in love with bike baskets.  I love how they are so convenient and practical, but can be totally cute at the same time.  But having recently stopped by Walmart and seeing the price tags of bike baskets, you could easily make your own for much cheaper!  This time I wanted to keep it really simple—a project that can easily be done in an hour or less.  And since ruffles are such a beautiful compliment to so many items, I thought a ruffle would be perfect to liven up this bike basket.



First you’ll want to choose the right basket.  One that has a somewhat flat side to lay against the bike’s front, one that is wide enough and deep enough.  I found this basket at the thrift store for $1.50. 

What you’ll need:


-basket
-fabric (I used 1/4 a yard, but how much fabric you need depends on how far around your basket is)
-about one package extra wide double folded bias tape
-glue gun

First measure around the top of the basket where your ruffle will be added.



Take that number and add half of it to itself, so mine was about 40”, I added half of that, so 20” and came up with 60”.  So I cut a strip 4” x 60”.  If you want a wider or thinner ruffle, adjust the 4” number I gave you.  You’ll have to cut two strips of fabric most likely and sew them together. 




Fold the strip of fabric in half length-wise, wrong sides together.  Sew two basting stitches close to the edge, making sure to stay close enough to the edge that the bias tape will cover your stitching.



Pull the two basting threads to gather the strip, measuring it against your basket to make sure you gather it enough or not too much.



Next sandwich the raw, gathered edge between the bias tape and sew (narrow edge of bias tape on the top).  I decided I’d use cream instead of the navy blue in the first pictures ;). 



Heat your glue gun and starting in the middle back, start gluing on the bias tape and sticking it onto the basket.  Keep in mind that you’ll be using ties and will need a small gap in two places to stick the ties through. 



When you get to the end, cut off any excess if there is any, fold the raw edge under, and glue the rest of the way. 



I just used some leftover bias tape for the ties. 



Tie it onto your bike, and you are done! 



A cute, quick, and inexpensive bike basket!  I’ve always wanted to ride my bike to a field and gather some wild flowers to put in my bike basket, with some fresh bread or something.  Happy ruffling!

Guest Posting on I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar

Hello everyone!  I’ve been looking forward to Cheri’s (I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar) Refashionista series and I’m excited to be participating today.  I’d love if you stopped and said hello over there!

 

I’m showing how I changed this thrifted shirt:

 

… to something more wearable.  Click HERE for the tutorial.

Happy Friday!

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Sponsor love:

I want to ride my bicycle.

This summer I really really really wanted to get a bike so I could ride around with my boys and pull B either in a bike trailer or get a bike seat.  I looked at our thrift stores, I posted on fb about anyone selling a bike for cheap, etc. etc.  No luck.  Either the bikes were too much or they were too small or they were run-down.  I searched for about a month.  I didn’t want to get even the cheap $100.00 ones at Walmart, because what if I hated riding a bike?  It’d been since my college years at BYU that I was even on a bike! 

Enter my old bike from when I was growing up.  She’s a beauty, right?  My mom had given it to my sister a while ago.  My sis heard my plea for a bike and said I could have it back, that it wasn’t really great however, and that they had a ton of bikes and didn’t use this one.

Early 90’s splattering of color and shapes adorn this baby.  How about the pink wires?  Pink and purple—every girls dream.  In 1993 or 1994 (and really, I kind of hated pink until I went to college, so maybe not even then!).  ;)

The child bike seat I actually did find thrifting.  It was awesome too, because I paid $8.00 when they are over $30.00 at the store.  It had all the parts and was in great shape—just the colors weren’t my favorite.  It clashed horribly with the pink and purple.  

A little bit of work later, and here’s what I have now:

Not great, but WAY better!  I still don’t love the purple color, but the black and gray help a lot. 

So originally I had this “great” idea that I would paint the bike.  So I took some sandpaper and got to work.  I knew taking it apart was better, but also a risk because knowing me, I wouldn’t be able to put it back together.  So I sanded for a bit until I realized that the pink/black/crazy swirls and slashes of color were stickers!  Yay!  STRONG stickers though—my fingers were so sore!

So where’s the pink wiring?  A bit of electrical tape did the trick—I just wrapped it around the wires and also on the red sticker close to the handlebars that would not come off for the life of me. 

For the child bike carrier, I was pleasantly surprised to see that on the back of the red portion, was gray!    

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was going to sew double fold bias tape around the whole thing, but it was too thick and I ended up cheating by hot gluing it on.

I removed and painted the blue straps black.

I unpicked the strap stitching and replaced the red buckles with black ones from Walmart. 

I found a perfect basket to spray paint that had a broken handle.  It only cost $0.25.  I just used plastic zip ties to secure it to the handlebars. 

I did replace the bike seat, and even once more since this picture was taken because B’s legs couldn’t fit as well with this huge seat on.  I ended up with a bike cover and hope that it doesn’t kill my nether regions after riding tomorrow! 

So there you have it.  B wears a helmet and can talk to me from behind, and my boys have LOVED going on little bike riding adventures with me.