Friday, March 25, 2011

Feature: Boring to WOW t-shirt tutorial

It's a {Feature Friday} here at CaitsCreates
This week I am featuring the talented Emma from Ruby Murray's Musings.


Every time I visit Ruby Murray I am inspired and amazed by all of Emma's clothing transformations. Please stop by Emma's blog and check out all the other awesome things she has done with hand-me-downs.

Now, here is Emma...

I'm so excited to be featured by the lovely Caitlin, I always check out her great transformations and today I'll be sharing a refashion of my own.

If you've ever checked out my blog you'll know I love to change things up, my Hand-Me-Down Horror series has been all about buying yucky or just plain boring clothes and making them into something I'd be proud to wear. Hack off those sleeves, raise that hemline and bob's your uncle a cute custom piece, for pittence.

So without further ado get your sewing needles and thread out and sharpen up those scissors!


Before, a plain long sleeve Tee from Old Navy, that cost me a wopping $2.60



1. Hack off those sleeves, keeping the cut line as neat as possible, then turn the sleeves inside out.

2. Next cut off the cuff again nice and straight, then cut off the stitching (serged seam) keep this as straight and neat as possible and keep everything.

This is what you'll end up with, don't throw anything out, nothing goes to waste on this project.
 

Next you'll be making the bows, out of the sleeves (I know, genius right!)

3. Start at the bottom cuff end of the sleeve and slowly pinch your way up, it's a very informal pleat, just basically grabbing finger fulls of the sleeve all the way up until you get to the top and have the entire sleeve pinched between index finger and thumb.



Whole sleeve pinched together

4. Next take the cut off sleeve cuff and wrap it around the middle of the bunched up sleeve, I fanned the sleeve out a little so you can see what it's starting to look like.

5. Keep wrapping the cuff edge around until it's tight and the sleeve is unlikely to fall out.

6. You've just made yourself a cute bow out of a sleeve, now to repeat the process until you have two.


There's a distinct (to me anyway) top and bottom to the bows, the top of the bow will be the rounded edge of the sleeve cap (the top part) just keep this in mind when you come to sew them on.

7. Next we're finishing off the neckline, and for this we're using the two long pieces you have left over from the sleeves, I only kept one so I just sewed the serged piece to the front and it looked fine but if you want to have matching front and back to the tee just continue sewing around the neck.

8. I just used a simple in and out 'running stitch' for the neckline, making sure to line up the serged piece with the neckline edge to make sure it's even.


The finished neck edge, it looks great doesn't it and to think it's just a piece of t-shirt scrap!

9. Next take the bow and making sure the top shorter edge is facing the neck edge line the middle of the bow up with the shoulder seam and simply stitch through the centre of the bow all the way through the t-shirt, I went all the way around the centre piece to make sure it was secure.



That's it, if you want to be extra fancy you could add a few stitches to the bow edges to keep it from flapping around but I've found I didn't need to do this and the bows stayed put. I also left the sleeve edge unturned, you could always turn it under and stitch, personally I liked the raw edge.

So there you are, it shouldn't take longer than an hour even for newbies to sew so even us naptime crafters can make a cute new addition to our wardrobes.http://rubymurraysmusings.blogspot.com/


I hope you enjoyed this awesome t-shirt tutorial {I can't wait to try it!}. A big thank you to Emma at Ruby Murray's Musing for sharing!

Have a wonderful weekend :)


47 comments:

  1. Great make-over!! I might have to try this one.

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  2. Love those bows! I so will be doing this in the future!

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  3. Thanks so much for featuring me Caitlin xoxo

    I really hope you try this too :)

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  4. OMG this is toooo cute! Thanks for sharing!

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  5. Wow wow wow!!! I am currently turning a few clearance long sleeve t shirts into summer maternity shirts for my niece and this is so perfect I don't even know what to say!!! You are a genius!! I love the bows! And when you said you were using every scrap, man oh man were you not kidding!! I love the detail around the neck!! I bow to your superior talent!! I love your work and I shall follow you to the ends of Goodwill!!

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  6. Love it! Can't wait to make one myself :-)

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  7. This is super cute and I love the idea of bows on your shoulders! I'm so doing this!

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  8. o my... How I LOVE this!!! I am relly gonna try this one!!!

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  9. Wow this is really cute. Thanks for sharing.

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  10. This is adorable! I want to try this one, too! Thinking might take two different, complimenting t-shirts and try!

    Great tutorial!

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  11. WOW! You have just single-handedly revolutionised my summer wardrobe! Just made my first of many. Will also do some with my daughter's tees, as she will outgrow them before next winter anyway! What a way to make the most out of her wardrobe. You are clever!!

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  12. I did it Caitlin Anne! Thanks a lot! My bow was so big that I decided to put only one and in front of the T-Shirt.

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  13. Hey we got a mention on Grosgrain!

    http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorials-7.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fgrosgrain+%28Grosgrain%29

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  14. Super cute top! I am going to try this one myself. Looks very "Anthro" - and that is a huge compliment (In case you were wondering). Cheers!

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  15. Now, I know what to do with the left over whenever I cut the sleeves off my blouses... Thanks for this great idea! xD

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  16. Wow, one of the cutest I've seen in a long while

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  17. I just had to comment b/c my name is Caitlin Anne also.... very strange!! hehehe

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  18. I'd love to have you share a project on Blissful and Domestic!

    www.blissfulanddomestic.blogspot.com

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  19. thanks for sharing this post. I really learn a about this post. keep up posting new ideas that would help on other people.

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  20. I have a white sweater that really needs this! (the seam for the sleeves is way itchy!) =) I'm so glad it can be salvaged, I'd hate to get rid of it! ^.^

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  21. This looks like a great and easy transformation for me to do at college without my sewing machine. Thank you!

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  22. Merci pour ce tuto ! Je l'ai fait, c'est très facile, et le résultat est très beau =)

    http://chatonblue.tumblr.com/image/35787041540

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  23. I would like to feature this tshirt tutorial on my blog (I have a series titled ~lovely details~ http://heavenlyprincess.wordpress.com/category/details/). May I use the first picture of the shirt in my post? I'll link back here of course!

    jordan

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  24. This is totally the one I would copy, it is adorable!!

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