3 shirts 1 dress

Before:

After:

I had 2 XL white t-shirts and 1 of my mom's old ones, so I made a dress with all 3 of them. The seams are kind of weird, but the sash covers it up. Also, the neck hem came out pretty well. I did a zig-zag stitch on low tension. Next time, I'll try to make my stuff more professional looking.

Another men's shirt refashion

I had a men's shirt that was slightly too big for me, so here's what I did with it.

1. First I cut off the sleeves and collar. 

2. I removed the seam on the back that attaches the top of the shirt to the majority of the back. I also cut along the side seams so that the back was separated from the rest of the shirt.

3. For the sleeves, I cut off the cuff and cut the sleeve along the underarm seam. 

4. I attached the sleeves to the back piece (to add more length to the cloth). The cuff side goes on the bottom.

5. I gathered the top part of the back piece + sleeves so that the width matched the back of the shirt that was still attached.

6. I sewed the back piece + sleeves back onto the back.

7. I sewed down the sides.

8. I cut off the bottom so everything was even.

9. I hemmed the neck and sleeves. When hemming the neck, remember that the back is now the front and the front is now the back. When I was hemming the sleeves, I had to adjust things a bit since the armhole was not even, so some parts I had to fold back more than other parts.

10. Hem the bottom 

And that's all! Here's how it looks now (I do have to fix it up a bit since I was in a rush when I was making this)

Gold elephant t-shirt and refashioned shorts

I bought a $1 shirt from the flea market and painted an elephant on it with gold fabric paint. I used a "3-dimensional paint" bottle, which means the paint squeezes out of the bottle. This was actually way, way better than using a paint brush. The bottle offers so much control, and it doesn't necessarily have to be 3-d and funky looking if you don't want it to. It's easy to make small, flat strokes, and they come out pretty cleanly.

After painting and letting it dry, I cut off the collar and hemmed it and cut off some of the sleeves and rolled them up. I also made the sleeve holes a bit smaller.

I think the elephant came out well. I couldn't find one that I liked online, so I made a design myself. I like making unique designs. It's really fun. I could do it all day.

The shorts are made from the top half of a maxi skirt. They're not that great, but I can wear them at home. I basically made a slit down the middle and then added a rectangular piece of cloth on the inside to prevent bunching, but next time I should make it wider.

My friend got me that bow belt. It goes well with the shirt!

By the way, here are some more detailed pictures of the sleeves:

First I cut off an inch or two and rolled a hem and secured it.

Then I took in the sleeve a bit (the picture shows the sleeve inside-out)


Here are the shorts in action!

Long skirt to shorter skirt

I had a long skirt. I made it shorter. Here's how I did it: Actually I wanted to make shorts and a skirt from it. The top was going to be shorts, so I cut off the bottom for the skirt. Then I made a "waistband" by hemming the top and strung some elastic through it. Then I added pockets.

Had a skirt

Cut the skirt

Made new skirt!

More pictures!

Refashion Brofashion - men's pants into shorts

What to do when your pants are too short and tight? Turn them into shorts! 

Here is a not-very-thorough step by step guide.

First, cut off the pants an inch or two longer than you want them to be.

Then cut two strip of different fabric the length of your shorts and whatever width you want, depending on how tight the shorts are. You can compare your tight pants to a pair that fits well to see how much extra fabric you'll need. Remember to distribute the extra fabric between the two sides.

Then, cut alongside one outer edge. I had very little room to cut, so the seam allowances had to be pretty small.

Sew the fabric strip to the shorts. (right sides together; I used the shiny part as the "wrong" side because it was too shiny for real life). Also before you sew the fabric to the shirts, you can hem one side so that the top will be cleaner. We'll hem the bottom later.

Another picture for your enjoyment.

Hem the bottom (fold it up twice and sew).

You may want to double stitch (or serge or whatever) so that the shorts won't break when you do fun activities like yoga (see example of intact shorts during activity above).

The finished product!

Oh yeah, the title says "Brofashion" because it's my brother. GET IT?

Elephant T Shirt Part 2

This is my friend, Sneha, wearing the shirt made in this post.

Bow belt

I made a bow belt out of old corduroy pants. I tried to take pictures to document the process, but then I forgot after the first one.

Edit: more pictures!

Elastic waist dress

I found a good use for old Indian dresses. I can hem the bottom, sew up the sides, shorten the sleeves and add elastic to the waist, and it becomes a dress!

Here's a picture of how it looked before:

Here's an after picture. I'm going to get a better picture after I fix the bottom hem a bit, but this should do for now :

Okay, I fixed the hem, and here is the dress in action. I'm kind of small in the picture, but oh well, who cares?

And I can even wear this dress with my other skirt that I just made (they used to be part of the same set):

Wow, so cool!

Edit: better picture!

Elephant print t-shirt

My friend saw a girl wearing a shirt with little elephants on it, and she really liked it, so I thought maybe I could try making it. First I cut out a little elephant from a piece of thick paper. It's a good thing I made it a simple elephant because it was easier to paint. I applied fabric paint with a brush. I also measured the placement of the elephants so that they would be equidistant. But the measuring was kind of an afterthought after I had stenciled the first row, so the group of elephants was a little off center. I tried to fix it when I stitched the t-shirt (because it was a men's size), but it was getting tiresome, so I gave up. Oh well, I still have more paint and I still have the stencil, so I could do it better if I felt like it. Also, I wanted black paint but Michael's didn't have it, so I got a teal color instead.

I'll put a picture of my friend wearing it soon.

Free T-shirt Makeovers!

I got a lot of free t-shirts, some of which were pretty big, so I refashioned a few of them.

This one is the most recent one. It was XL to begin with. I just cut off the sleeves and took in the sides. It was very quick.

I think it looks better with a sweater.

I made this peplum top a while ago. It was size small originally, but I managed to squeeze out a peplum. Hurray.

 And this dress used to be an XL T-shirt. I cut the shirt in half. Then I cut off the sleeves and collar and hemmed them. I took in the sides of the top part. I gathered the bottom skirt part, but overall the dress would have been pretty short, so I added some white cloth in between to lengthen it (also from another free T-shirt). Then I sewed them all together. There are a few flaws if you look closely, but that's okay.

For this shirt, I just sewed the sides all the way like I did for the gray shirt I made a while ago from a Cotton&Curls tutorial. And then I made a curved hem.

The End.

Edit: JK, not the end. Here some more pictures of my t-shirt dress.