T-shirt Refashioned

I finally did it! Saw lots of the refashion tutorials around the blogland and made many mental notes to do them one day. But, it's kinda scary to cut up a good piece of T-shirt and mess up the whole thing. What if I cut out too much? What if my final product is worse than the original T-shirt? What ifs..what ifs... These goes through my mind alot and most T-shirt here in Singapore are quite expensive. At least, for me to cut them up.

Well, then I decided to just do it. It surely liberated me and I"m game for more : ) Cut off the sleeves and used them as ruffles for the neck line and sleeve hems. Didn't refer to any particular tutorials but just goes with what I have.  Here's the short tutorial below if you want to try.

Instruction
1. Find a long sleeve T-shirt. I bought 2 long sleeves white spandex T-shirt at $10 a piece from This Fashion.

2. Cut off the sleeves at 3/4.  I've used my old T-shirt blouse as a rough gauge.

3. Open up the sleeves by cuting away the side seams.

4. Use a ruler and measure out 1" strips before you cut them all out. We will not be using the sleeve finished hem.

5. Using the widest stitch width on your sewing machine and increase the tension, sew the strip individually in the middle.  I've used stitch width 4 and tension 6.  Do for all the strips.

6. Afterwhich, you can pull the bobbin thread so that the strip become ruffles-liked. 

7. Pin them around the neckline using pins. Start from the shoulder seam area and make the round to the other shoulder seam. Just lay the next strip after the first one ends.  I've also inserted a piece of lace on top of the centre neckline.

8. Do the same for the sleeve hem. Start from the side seam area and move round it. Pin in place.

9. Using the normal stitch length and tension, sew around the neckline to attach the ruffles.  Sew in the middle of the strip, right on top of the earlier gathered stitch.  You can trim away these extra threads after you have finished sewing the ruffles.  Go very slowly so that it curves around the neckline.  Before I sew the ruffles, I use a straight stitch to sew the piece of lace on.

10. Do the same for the sleeves, except that the area is much smaller and you will need to be careful not to sew the sleeve shut! The finished T-shirt. Maybe next time, I'll be more adventurous and go for some colours. What do you think?

close up on the sleeve hem

Zipper pencil case

Sew this under 30minutes as a gift for my girl's childcare teacher who had her birthday last Saturday. It was pretty easy. The more time consuming part was the choosing of the fabric and deciding on the size.

My girl had bought the 2 pens for her teacher and I took that size to roughly come up with the measurement of the case to be 7"X 3.5".  I'll not be doing any tutorial since there are many tutorials in the blogland on this and you can google around. But, do let me know if any of you still prefer me to do one : )

My zipper is 8"and used 0.25"" seam allowance. However, it was give and take as I use the design print on the fabric as a guide. This piece was very pretty. I got that at a shop at Chinatown. The inner layer was linen.  I"ve also attach a ring at the zipper tab for the ribbon tie.

So pretty. I shd make one for myself too...: )

Cupcake box pleat dresses

Back view

fabric flower pin

The only ''proper" photo of them together!

no flower pin. she refused to pin them cause her sister has none.
I didn't have time to make another.

The only time she will sit still is for FOOD!

I've finally finished the 2 dresses for my girls. They are exactly the same with one size 6T and the other 1T+. Had in mind to make the 2nd dress a bit different but my girl objected it cause she wanted her younger sister to look identical to hers!

The pattern drafting took some time as I was trying to figure out the measurement as I roughly based it on a similar pattern found in a pattern book but I've adjusted the arm hole size, added the waist band and extra lining at the skirts. Overall, I'm happy with the results. Don't they look sweet? They wore them to church this morning and got many 'likes' from friends : ) (beam). But did you notice the mistakes I did?

Well, for one, my toddler had a bigger head so the one button neck hole doesn't allow her head to go in when I tried it on her this morning! I did the dress late last night and didn't have time to take the exact measurement from her. Kinda hard to get her to stay still so I've used her old dress for measurement. Last minute I've got to cut the opening wider. Guess, she needs 2 buttons allowance for it to work on her.

2nd, also happen to be on my youngest girl's dress, I"ve accidentally cut the print of the cupcakes upside down for the front skirt! Yucks! It was too late to rectify as I didn't realised till I"ve done up the whole skirt! I"ll do better the next time. So, if you are cutting fabric with print, do note the alignment before you place your pattern pieces! Else you will end up like me, Ouch. It's an eye sore everytime I look at the photos : P

The fabric was light weight cotton that I bought at sale from Spotlight at $4.50 per metre. Love the cupcakes design, so sweet and cheerful.  If I have the time, maybe I'll draft out the other sizes and put them up, that is if, I've the time after my regular office work, housework, childcare, wife duty etc etc...hmmmm...