LL Bean t-shirt reconstruction

I have four wonderfully soft pima cotton t-shirts from LL Bean in a leaf green color. This is not a color I would normally choose to buy and four t-shirts is a bit many but it was part of my kit for my morris dancing team. When we choose a new color for our kit t-shirt, that left me free to play.

I decided to try the bolero/shrug/shirt pattern again. I found a striped turtleneck at the thrift store that I thought would work well with the green shirt. This time, I was able to follow the yoke pattern and double the material, unlike the single thickness I used on my contrastock t-shirt recon. The torso of the turtleneck was just the right size for the yoke pattern. I used the turtleneck sleeves as they were. I should do something with the leftover neck, maybe I'll make a headband.

The v-neck was a bit fiddly and I took a trial and error approach to making this. I'm happy with the results, but think next time I'll work on more accuracy with measuring and cutting -- re-sewing the sleeves three times on each side was a bit tiresome. I didn't make any effort to line up the stripes.

T-shirt reconstruction - Contrastock

I've picked up a few t-shirts recently and I've been thinking about reconstructing them. I got this XL Gildan t-shirt last week and thought I should jump in before I'd thought about it too long and ended up with options paralysis.

Until recently, most of my sewing had been upcycling/recycling/reconstruction projects. However, my kids recently wanted to make a vest using a Simplicity pattern. My oldest knew how to find the fabric requirements on the back of the package, so I figured that between the two of us, we could figure it out.  The vests turned out really well and it broke the pattern mystique -- I was no longer frightened of patterns! Seriously, they scared me because if you play around with a recon, there is no way to measure its success or failure; you are simply making art. But a pattern has a built-in metric -- the garment is supposed to look like the picture on the front. You have either succeeded or failed at making the garment. It seems a lot less like playing. 

Anyway, we love going to Jo-Ann fabric and when they had a sale on Simplicity patterns for $1 each, I stocked up on anything I thought might be useful. I picked patterns because of elements in them that I liked, like drapey sleeves, though I have no intention of ever making the full garment.

So, for this recon, I used one of those $1 Simplicity patterns, number 2364, which has a bolero/shrug-like feature. Since this is a reconstruction, I didn't follow the pattern as written but used it as a guide. I did use the pattern pieces for the yoke and the sleeves. I referred to the pattern pieces for the front and back of the top. 

I made a mistake in first altering the top to fit me, like I did in this project. It's very simple, you just lay a well-fitting t-shirt over the big t-shirt, chalk the outline and sew. It was so cute, I was tempted to leave it as it was. However, I'm not a big t-shirt wearer and my last t-shirt recon was also a black t-shirt, so I thought I might try something different. Plus, I was itching to use my Simplicity pattern.

Why was it a mistake to fit the t-shirt first? Because the way the shirt is constructed required that I cut the side seams and shoulder seams, trim and lower the front. So once I had that lined up with the back, the nicely shaped fitting I had done was now off kilter and confusing as heck. It didn't matter in the end, but it made my life more difficult. So my advice is to fit the t-shirt last, if it needs it.

I followed the pattern instructions and used the front and back pattern pieces to get a sense of how they should line up. I used the yoke pattern on a grey t-shirt that I had attempted to reconstruct into a bolero jacket without using a pattern. I hadn't been successful with that and I may post my attempts because I took lots of photos. I ended up abandoning that project. No matter, I had the material available to use for this one. 

The yoke pattern piece is interesting geometry and I highly recommend Simplicity pattern 2364 if you can find it for cheap. I would not have figured out this shape - I know because it was what I was going for with the abandoned bolero shrug project. The yoke piece is assembled and folded in half. I didn't have enough material for that so I copied the pattern piece onto heartier paper and played with the shape by folding it different ways and ended up using it folded in a different way than the pattern calss for. The drape was single thickness rather than double, which is what it would have been had I used the pattern piece as the pattern intended. I'm sure I lost some body in the drape because of it but I did what was expedient. I used the sleeve pattern for the sleeve cap but was able to use the original t-shirt sleeve hem.

I played around with this quite a bit. The pattern for the Simplicity top creates a bit of a front drape and I didn't want the front of the top (the black part) to drape but to be as flat as possible so I had to do some tweaking. Ideally, I would have taken all of this into account before I sewed and would have cut the front properly, but no, I sewed and pinned and tried on and ripped seams and sewed and pinned again.

I am pleased with the result. I think I may even use the Simplicity pattern to make the top from scratch some day.

T-shirt reconstruction - Alepocalypse

This t-shirt is special to me because it's my first morris ale t-shirt, but it was shapeless and baggy and maybe I didn't really want a tank top anyway.

Sorry that my computer reverses the image - it's really quite clever with its listing of various end times past

I love Pinterest and have been pinning t-shirt recons like crazy. I finally got up the nerve to use them. This post isn't a tutorial because there are so many wonderful tutorials already on the internet. This post is just to show how I combined them to create a top that I love!

First, I altered this baggy t-shirt into shape based on a tutorial that suggested using a well-fitting shirt as a pattern and tracing it onto the bigger shirt. After tracing, I sewed it up, checked the fit and then cut off the excess. I even pressed open the seams. Since I was dealing with a tank top, sleeves were not an issue.

Then, I decided to add a bustle back to this t - I love this tutorial, love her attitude, love the sound of her voice, I've watched it many times. For my bustle, I used scraps from a failed recon of a black t-shirt as well as satin and sheer bits I used in my bustle project (which I've yet to write up and post). I love that synthetic material does not need to be hemmed to avoid fraying but can be melted using a lighter. I had so much fun watching the ends curl up and I figured it would add an interesting texture to the bustle. I thought about adding some velvet bits because I think that would have been awesome, but I didn't feel like hemming it and worried it would shed.

Finally, I decided that I really wanted to add sleeves to this. I debated whether to add long sleeves or short and very nearly added long velour sleeves from an unloved zip jacket that was given to me. I decided velour would make it too cold-weather seasonal and decided to stick with jersey. I had a failed recon that I figured I'd use for scrap and decided to use its sleeves. I picked out the ribbing on the armscye and added the sleeves just by pinning them in place and sewing -- it was pretty easy, even for a novice like me.

Satin robe to kimono top

I bought a satin robe at a thrift store because I wanted the material for another project. Looking at the top on the hanger, I couldn't help but think it would make a great kitschy kimono top.

I searched the Internet hoping to find a tutorial to tell me exactly how to make one. I found an inspirational picture and a tutorial that didn't fit my materials but was helpful nonetheless. I love people who make Internet tutorials and share their knowledge. I hope to be one.

I had a black t-shirt that was a bit tight on top that I thought would be perfect for the bottom.

So, all I had to do was sew the top of the robe to the bottom of the knit shirt, what could be easier? Well, it was pretty easy but as a novice sewer, it took me about 4 hours with the results being slightly wonky but still wearable in my book!

Sorry I don't have step-by-step pictures. The first thing I was try on the robe part and pin it where I wanted it to close, checking to be sure that I'd still be able to get it over my head. Then I stitched horizontally across the bottom of the robe top to keep it closed. I thought just sewing the black bottom on wasn't interesting enough, so I decided to add some of the red trim to the front waist for a sort of belt look. When I cut the bottom of the robe off to use for my other project, I did not want to use the red trim, so I cut that off and saved it - this is what I used for the front belt. If I was an adept sewer, I might have put one on the back as well.

I opened it up and ironed it flat. Then I started to play around with it.  I ironed one edge down to hide the raw ends and stitched that, right sides together to the robe where I wanted the waist to be. 

I didn't measure anything, just eyeballed all of it and left the rest of the robe without trimming it up. Since the satin was so slippery, I started to sew from the middle to one end. Then I sewed from the middle to the other end. I went back and top stitched the belt down, leaving a nice-looking finish, if I do say so myself.

Now, here is where things got really fun and I stopped photographing. I tried on my t-shirt to decide where I wanted to cut and decided to cut a bit higher than the waist of the t-shirt because I wanted the kimono top to have a bit more length than the t-shirt did. Since the t-shirt is knit, it didn't matter that I cut it above its waist, it shaped nicely around the new waist. 

I pinned the t-shirt bottom to the top of the robe and was really sort of random about it. I safety pinned, tried it on, checked the mirror. For the front, I just sewed the t-shirt and the robe belt/red strip right sides together. I did not top stitch it down like I had with the top of the strip. Why? well, I didn't want to really. I thought it might affect the fall of the back of the knit top and/or didn't know if it would create some sort of pull on the front. Basically, I didn't care all that much. 

One concern I did have was that I find sewing on knits to be a bit difficult. I read a hint to use tissue paper underneath the knit when sewing on a machine and I have found that it does help. In this case, I just made sure I was always sewing with the satin robe on the bottom and the knit on top, so I pinned and re-pinned, changing the orientation so that I was always sewing with the knit on top. 

I continued my approach of sewing from the center to one edge and then starting again at the center and going to the other edge - I really think this helped me to keep things a bit more even. On the back of the top, I knew I had much more robe material than t-shirt and decided to put a couple of tucks on the sides of the back to accommodate this. You can get a sense of that here

This is what the top looks like from the front

Not bad for 4 hours and a newbie sewer. And I've actually worn this in public a few times.

A note about the edges -- I used pinking shears to cut the edges but the 100% polyester robe seemed eager to fray. I had learned from the Internet (various fabric flower making tutorials) that man-made materials melt nicely to seal off edges so I took a lighter to the inside robe seams. Aware that the melted seams might scratch me when I wear the top, I took the extra length from the knit top and sewed it over the edges. This might not make sense but a lot of my approach to making this top didn't make a lot of sense and was trial-and-error all the way.

My only concern now is that wearing a 100% polyester top is a bit like wearing a trash bag. Given that it's black, I'm concerned that wearing this out in the sun will turn this into one of those "sweat it off weight loss" tops.