Last of the tee to tank refashions

One of the first projects I did off my ‘Things to make’ board on Pinterest was the tank to tee refashion following the tutorial over at Crafterhours.

I made two - this one here and the second one here. Both were refashioned from old tshirts the husband had put out onto the goodwill pile.

Here is the third also made from a discarded old tshirt from Mr CraftyAdy's pile of unwanted tshirts.



When I took the goodwill pile to our local charity / goodwill shop, they had some very large and very new-looking mens tshirts on the racks and two in camo-print caught my eye. I bought them and here's the one all finished in grey and black ...



And here is the other in blue and black.



As the original tshirts were so big, I had to take the sides in on both for a better fit. I think five tanks is more than I need for my fitness classes and for the summer. Might have a think about button-down shirt refashions next maybe.

Do you have a 'Things to make' Pinterest board? Have you made anything from it?

Another tee to tank refashion

Mr CraftyAdy was throwing out a bunch of old tees a couple of weeks ago and I snagged them for refashioning. I already refashioned one here.

This is another.



And here is a third one cut up and ready to be transformed.



If you fancy having a go, you can find the tutorial here.

I hope you are having a good weekend, friends.

Tee to tank refashion

Yesterday I showed you this ....



which got cut up like this ...



and now looks like this ...



Thanks to this fab tutorial over at Crafterhours, I now have a great 'new' tank to wear to my fitness classes and during the summer. I hacked a hideous old tshirt of Mr CraftyAdy into strips and used one of the strips to make the straps for this tank and actually left the hem on this tshirt untouched. It's so comfortable to wear. I love it!

I'm off to hack up a couple more old tees to make more tanks.

Upcycle ... refashion ... does this count as a tutorial?

I work full-time - leaving the house at 8.15 am with toddler tucked under one arm and lunch-bag and handbag tucked under the other. I don't normally get home until 5.30 pm after collecting both children from their various child-care establishments. One of the big problems I have every year is having enough clothes which are smart enough for office wear (gone are the days when I can get away wearing jeans and a tshirt to work *sigh*) but are comfortable (at my age comfort is a significant factor!) and require very little care or ironing. One of my big sewing goals this year is to sew myself a few items which I can wear to work and not feel a slob.

I quite like the idea of high-waist skirts paired with a smart shirt. The problem I have is that I do not like the bulk at the waistline that comes with wearing a shirt tucked into a skirt. Enter the high-waist dress in two tones. I could have used Simplicity’s Project Runway pattern number 2724 but only just having started sewing for myself, I wasn’t confident in handling such a pattern. A quick rummage around in my wardrobe resulted in 3 stretchy cotton shirts from H&M. Two of them were pretty old, very washed and even sported the odd hole or two. Gaining much inspiration from wonderful refashions such as Grosgrain’s Mockingbird frock , Little Red Roost's Alice dress and I Am Momma Hear Me Roar’s terrific sassy-classy dress refashion, I decided to try a refashion of my own using the old shirt and some black Ponte Roma Knit jersey. The first attempted yielded this …
I thought it was kind of cute and was spurred me on to do a second dress – this time I remembered to take photos along the way so I can share the process with you. So I started with the old shirt. I roughly worked out where I wanted the waist of the dress to start and cut it straight across. I then cut the remnants into strips.

Using the skirt from Butterick 5382, I made a skirt with the black knit jersey.


Setting the shirt and the skirt aside, I returned to the strips and serged a rolled hem edge on all the strips. I then gathered the strips to form ruffles. I wanted a few ruffles to jazz up the boring neckline ... make it prettier.


I pinned the ruffles to the neckline and played with a couple of alternatives. Once settled on the version I wanted (the one on the right), I stitched the ruffles down to the neckline of the shirt.


The next thing was to sew the shirt to the skirt. Pinning the two parts right sides together, I stitched all around the edge using a half inch seam allowance. I ironed the seam down towards the skirt and top-stitched all around from the right side.


And finally, I hemmed the skirt using some iron-on hemming tape before sewing a row of stitches an inch from the edge. I find that this gives me a crisper edge on my jersey hems. I also made 3 little tabs and stitched them on as belt loops.

And the final result ...

Ta-da! What do you think? I found it a very useful learning experience and a good way to refashion old work shirts and giving them a new lease of life.