Monday 12 May 2014

Upcycling Daddies Old Work Shirt!


 
My husband recently sorted out his wardrobe which left me with a huge - and I mean HUGE pile of clothes to get rid of.
I really hate waste, and even though I originally put them in the "off to the op shop" pile, I still felt that it was a shame to get rid of perfectly good clothes. (even though they didn't fit hubby anymore)
 
So before carting them off to the op- shop, I thought I'd see what I could do to re-purpose them first!
 
So this little project is something that I've been wanting to do for a while. I usually say "I don't sew clothes" but, seeing as though I have a little girl - and girls can never have too many clothes - I thought I'd give this a go!
 
A while back I also read this post by Pip Lincolne about Ethical fashion. Since then, I have been itching to start a project just like this one!
 
I searched through Pintrest for some instructions - but I didn't really find any simple enough that I liked- so I have kind of combined a few different instructions here and put my own spin on it too!
 
So here's what I did:
 
I firstly took this extremely wrinkled work shirt ( I didn't bother ironing it - as It would probably end up wrinkled throughout the process anyway - and I don't like ironing - so any excuse really!)
 

I then got one of Little Miss Z's dresses that fits her nicely and is a similar shape to what I want my dress to look like.
 
I placed this dress over the shirt. I lined the neck of the dress up with the collar of the shirt. This is an awesome way to cheat doing a neckline on your new dress - as it is already done for you!
 
 
Now cut around your dress, adding about an extra 2 cm around the edges. This will give you a seam allowance, and helps to avoid cutting your good dress!
 
This is what I was left with - looks a bit rough, but we can soon sort that!!


Next I hemmed all the rough edges - (this should be the bottom and the sides.)
 
Once I had done that, I got Miss Z to try it on - she loved this part!
 
I marked where I wanted the sleeves to be, then I stitched from the bottom of the dress up to my mark.
 

Again I got her to try on. As this shirt was quite wide to start with - it wasn't sitting right on her. I had to fold over and stitch up the bottom "corners".

The dress now looks like this! ( for some reason it looks a little uneven on the shoulders here - but I promise you - it is even!)
 
 
 
And just to finish it off I tied a bit of purple ribbon around her waist.
What do you think? ( please don't mention the dirty floors! I probably should have been cleaning them instead of sewing - but I'm like that and choose sewing over housework any day!!)
 
 
 




My little model LOVES this dress. Every time she puts it on now - she asks me to photograph her in it!
I still kind of look at it as being Johns work shirt - but I do like it. I might have to make another one!