Making a shirt from a shirt – part 2 (or, not my finest hour).

My husband has a shirt that he never wears as it has short sleeves; he would never wear a short sleeved shirt but always rolls the sleeves up on a long sleeved one, but enough of his quirks….

I’ve always liked the checked fabric of this particular shirt so have kept it for me. I put some darts in it to give it a more womanly shape but I still look quite manly in it, not the look I was going for so, so have decided it needs a complete re-shaping. My idea was to make it into a summer blouse – sleeveless with a tie at the front. So inspired by Ingrid and The Great British Sewing Bee I got cracking.

I’ve a gung ho attitude to sewing. My confidence far out weighs my talent. Fortunately I do realise this so tend to practice on something first, in this case and old work shirt of my husband’s. Good thing too as I cut the sleeves off far too enthusiastically and cut into the shirt itself. Note to self – don’t cut sleeves through double thickness. I cut the shirt tail off and hemmed it, put darts in the back and at the bust, then shaped the front so it would tie. And the end result? – not great. I certainly won’t be winning any alteration challenges. I could hear Patrick Grant’s voice in my head saying “it still looks like the original shirt” and May Martin adding “but there’s some nice stitching”. But Patrick is right, it does look like the original shirt minus the sleeves.

I’m not disheartened, however, I’ve learnt some valuable lessons (mainly that I am obsessed with the Sewing Bee) and think I know what I need to do with the actual shirt I want to alter. I need to re-sew the side seams to give it a better shape. So I still plan to make a shirt from a shirt and hopefully my next attempt will provide a more inspiring blog post!