Repurposing an old T-shirt...

Don't forget to check out the scarves I now have available...such a great stocking stufffer!!!

I enjoy sewing and trying new things but it isn't economically friendly to purchase a new yard of fabric every time I want to try something new...which is why I frequent thrift stores. This weekend I purchase a few solid color, size large,  men's t-shirts. One was orange, one was black, and one was blue. This post explains how I used the blue and orange one. I would suggest purchasing the largest size possible because that way you get more fabric. Each t-shirt was $1.00

Using a shirt I already had, I traced the outline that I wanted onto the navy blue shirt. When doing this keep in mind how stretchy your material is. The shirt I was tracing was more stretchy, causing me to make my new shirt larger than the shirt I was tracing to make up for the lack of stretch.

Below is a picture of the t-shirt I chose to trace folded in half against the t-shirt I bought, which was also folded in half.

After tracing and cutting I had something that looked like this:

I then cut the sleeves off of the original shirt, just as they were. I also cut the bottom off of the original shirt and left it just as it was. Both the sleeves and the bottom were too large, meaning I would need to make pleats for them to fit. 

I made the pleats and pinned the pieces together and then sewed. Basically the idea behind this shirt is that you cut an old big shirt up and then re-attach everything back together :)

I wanted some color so I added an orange braid around the neckline, using the orange t-shirt. Below is a picture of the orange material before I braided it. It doesn't need to be perfect which is what I love.

I also added an orange flower (to find how I did that click here) and an orange tie at the neck (I literally just took a strip of orange material and tied it into a knot) My intention was not to look like I'm headed to a UVA game but oh well...

I think the pleats really add a lot and make what used to be a boring old t-shirt into something a little more exciting. And it only cost me $1! I have enough of the orange shirt left over to make a cute dress for Lilly.

What do you think?