Another Shirt Refashion

Sorry to everyone who saw this post with just pictures and no words. The world is against me today :) I am trying to get this done before Friday so I can schedule the post... I'll be halfway between Scottsdale, AZ and San Diego, CA when this really goes live! I'm excited- even though the weather forecast calls for rain. I love rain!

I got this shirt at Target on clearance for $3. In the kids section. It is a size 6, which means it will be a long time before my kid uses it, but I think there is a girl at our church who would appreciate it.

So it came with the Cleopatra-esque "bib" that I promptly removed. As fast as humanly possible. I kept it, though, in case I needed faux jewels for any future project :).

To do a refashion like this, you will need elastic thread wound on your bobbin (had wound just a little bit tight, mind you!) and I found it was much easier using a darning or free-motion quilting foot.

I acted as though I was going to quilt the shirt- I dropped the feed dogs on my machine (every machine is different on how to do this), set my stitch length to 0 (since you are going to move the fabric yourself), and went to town. I started on one shoulder seam and did loop-de-loos all the way to the other shoulder seam. The elastic thread on the bobbin started scrunching the shirt and adding cute little bubbles all over. I went from shoulder to shoulder three separate times.

When I was done, it was all scrunched up like this. Since it pulled the front of the shirt, I would start with a shirt a size too big for your desired size, and go from there. That way it won't be too small around the shoulders and across the chest.

But the shirt still didn't look finished to me. So, since I still had my machine set with the elastic and all that, I just stitched over the hem in three rows. It is beginning to have that shirred look. I didn't do more than three rows, but feel free to have at it! Also, if you steam the elastic with your iron, it will scrunch up even more. I didn't want to haul out the iron just to steam a few rows of stitching. Call me lazy, I know.

I hope you like this refashion! I think I'll try this on a few of my shirts that need sprucing up. I have plenty!

If you didn't go to Fun To Craft this week, you missed my latest home decor tutorial- spring placemats! Check it out.