Gray striped plus size refashion

Well it has been a while since I posted but it was a stressful few months between no pain medicine, the one year anniversary of my mom's passing and the two year anniversary of my sisters' it was hard to get the enthusiasm to write. But New Year and new motivation so here is the latest in refashion plus size.

My sister and I have the same tastes in some clothes in others we are like WTF why would you like that. This is one of them.

But she loved it so time to make it looser and look good. I hate adding triangles to a shirt because nothing shouts "it didn't fit me until now" at least to me. I have seen it done and have done so myself but it is hard to make it look like the original design so I decided to save my headaches and try something new. I had a grey tshirt where the front was messed up with bleach spots but the back was perfect. So I folded it and cut two long trapezoid.



Then I folded the pieces in half lengthwise and laid it on the shirt the narrow side to the top. Bear in mind that I want the piece larger then what I will make the opening and the difference between the top and bottom is less then two inches.

Once it is lined up with the edge I used chalk to mark where the underarm goes then I rounded of the top end. I cut allowing 1/4" to be turned under. Then I cut along the fold of the shirt all the way to the underarm.

I began to pin the piece in place after marking how far I wanted to spread the opening. My bad I got a little enthusiastic about how big I wanted it but my sister was happy she wants to use it with leggings or tight leg jeans. So the opening can be however big you want it to be just mark with chalk. The easiest way was to fold the shirt with the cut edges closed  close the material around it with the underarm center joint and the bottom center joint in the right place. Place a ruler inside the shirt and push it right against the center seam of the add on. Then holding at the underarm pull the bottom of the ruler out to the side the amount of inches you want to add. I say use a ruler because it prevents the fabric from stretching out of place and keeps the edge smooth. This means there is no guesswork about the attachments edge. Move the ruler back under where the edge of the fabric overlaps the shirt and begin to pin it in place. The ruler I used is a quilting ruler but any one will do.

When you finish the inside will look like this:

You can see how enthusiastic I got at making this work. The outside will look like this:

There were some more changes first was the length of the sleeve that had to go luckily it was easy to cut off about two inches and hem it up.

Then because she is annoying that way she decided that she need a pocket to tie everything together. It is hard to put a pocket on a plus size person because if you put it straight according to a flat shirt it is going to look crooked once it is on. She came up with a good idea I made a paper pocket then kept adjusting it on while she wore the shirt.

Now you have the finished product:

 Next time a little less extreme though the addon will stay the same size actually I might make it wider so it comes out closer to the bust. Did not take long to do for a normal sewer you are looking at 2 to 4 hours only because t-shirt material curls when cut and can be annoying.

Skirt to tank

I had a skirt that I loved the fabric hated the skirt so time to redo it.

First thing was to get rid of the waist band and since the top was pleated this opened up more fabric.

I measure from the top of my bust to under my arm and then from the middle of my underarm to side to get the dept and width of the cut I would need. The pockets did not matter since they were going to be cut out but I kept them for the should strap since I did not have a lot of material to play with. I cut strips and joined them to get two decent strips aproximately 10" long and 2" wide. I had some green satin left from another project and cut two strips 10" and 6" wide.

 I used iron on interfacing to give the fabric some weight then sewed the smaller strip to the wider one to form a tube. I made sure to serge the edges before turning.

I pressed them flat then sewed in the ditch to give them stability and strength. Remember that the patterned strip had several joints.

I added a small strip of the green satin to the front and back and added a small elastic to gather the material and help tie the look to the straps. The straps were placed on at a slight angle to make them lie flatter and prevent them from slipping

Simple Tank Top with straps wide enough to hide a bra straps. The Material is cool and looks good with jeans.

Lace butterfly

Since I seem to be on a broomstick skirt run here's another. My sister for some strange reasons loves orange so when she saw this one at the thrift store she fell in love.

I did like the touches of brown it added depth to the skirt. This one was a 2X so there was plenty of material. I did the usual removing the waist band and opening the sides up. 

Now I could have just hemmed the armhole and closed the shoulder seam but I wanted something different. We are going to a family reunion at the end of may and definitely needed some comfortable but stylish traveling clothes. I decided that the front neckline needed something to take away from all that orange and to give a focal point. My sister went a little nuts on a site that had lace appliques and there was this pretty brown butterfly that just went perfectly.

I have never sewn on this type of applique. first I pinned then tacked with colored thread to remove easily. I thought at first of using a zizzag stitch over the ends to attach it. That didn't work mainly because the fabric is too gauzy. Next time I know to use a stabilizer. I ended up sewing on the thicker middle with a small stitch 1.5 following along the edge. Then I did a blanket stitch all around the edge to keep it flat. I think it turned out pretty good.

Its perfect for summer and for casual wear. For work she uses a brown belt to give it more shape and make it look professional. Either way the butterfly serves as a great focal point. It works so well on her because she has a large bust otherwise I would have used a small focal.

tshirt to fancy top

My sister had a very nice favorite t-shirt top with embroidery around the neck. The problem was that it was faded and was too short so any movement of the arms made the stomach ride up. So I decided we needed to make some changes.

I cut it about 3 inches below the armhole to give me enough room to attach a bottom but still have the seam below the bust. Next a dip in some red dye to refresh the color. I like to soak the fabric well and since I live in Texas there is always a lot of heat. I have a clean tall trashcan half filled with water and set on my deck. I had a pan of boiling water a cup of salt and the dye I stir with a long pole and put in the items one at a time. I leave it sitting in the sun for several hours stirring well 3 or 4 times an hour. then I wring it out place in the washer and have someone dump the liquid in the washer and wash normally. I always get a good color. Also if I want something dyed a lighter version of the color I will add it to the wash where it will get a light to medium tint of the color depending on the fabrics original color. Its also good for touching up something a little faded.

In one of our many thrift store shopping binges I found this lovely chiffon skirt. I took out the waistband and separated the inner liner which I have plans for. The skirt was a XL circle skirt so to get the top opening I needed I folded it into quarters.

(I am actually showing the liner because I forgot to take a picture of this step) To get the measurement I folded the shirt in quarters and measured adding a 1/2 inch. Then I measured carefully from the top as I needed to keep the circle shape of the opening. It took a couple of tries but I found the right distance from the top to give me opening size I needed. (I could have used my sister the math teacher for this one)
I attached the top to bottom and since the hem was already done I had a very nice tunic.

The chiffon skirt adds a nice touch and moves the shirt from casual to office dressy. Now I just need to make her some leggings. As for the left over piece  from the t shirt I cut about 5 inches from the overall length, hemmed it and tossed it into the dye. My sister had seen a Pinterest where they used t shirt bottoms as belt/sash. We found that a Medium/Large t-shirt makes a sash the perfect size for her even though she wears a 5X. I was shocked to realize just how much they stretch once separated from the top. Now we will keep an eye out for unique colors and patterns in smaller shirts to make the belts.

Purple skirt to summer top

I love peasant skirts they are just so much fun to work. The good thing is that once you get rid of the waistband you can fit the skirt to a much larger size and still have it look good. The skirt I am working with is a Medium size that I purchased from the Dollar General when they were having a sale. Actually I bought several since they were buy 2 get one free.

After trimming the top I opened up the sides to accommodate my arms. I knew the design I was going for so I measured from my collarbone to under my arm then used some ribbon I had from another project to finish the armhole. I had already measured the length of my shoulder and decided to use some satin blanket binding that I had.

I am not sure why the color looks different I am going to assume different lighting most of the pictures are from an overhead light but some are from a room with an over the table flourescent light. Originally I was only going to use one piece that had been opened but I did like where the first tier hit on my bust so I added a second piece and use some decorative stitches to give it some interest. Of course doing so lowered the arm opening so I used more of the blanket binding.

I did this instead of sewing the opening because it gave a better drape at the arm and bust.

I made a v-neck and used some of the sheer ribbon I used on sides to give the neckline some stability. I made sure that the ribbon was actually shorter then the neckline to help pull it together. Then I used the same decorative stitch.

Not the best modeling job I think I look drunk but you can see where the first tier not hits just under the bust which looks better then across the middle. I normally wear a 4X shirt so you can see how well a medium skirt does when converted. Blanket binding comes in so many colors and makes great straps whether you want a halter or something more concealing.