More T-shirt makeovers and How-to's

I started with 1 black t-shirt to make-over but it turned into two.

I liked the look of my white t-shirt ruffled neck so I decided to make a ruffled neck for the black t-shirt as well, only with a slightly bigger ruffle. I really like how it turned out. Sorry, the pictures are kind of hard to see. It's hard working with black on black.

The after:

Blahzay before:

For the next black t-shirt I started with this:

And after a little ruffle mania, ended up with this:

This ruffle make-over was based on the shirt by Made By Lex

Okay, so how did I do it?

Here are some play-by-plays-

For all of my t-shirt make-overs I used clearance rack t-shirts at Old Navy to create the ruffles and flowers. I bought a white, cream and black shirt, each ranging from $2.50-$4.00, and I cut them up. Not too shabby! They worked great.

FYI - jersey doesn't fray so you don't have to hem anything unless you want to.

The first step for each t-shirt was to cut the new neckline. I folded the shirt in half, matching the shoulder seams together, and pinned it, like this:

Make sure you smooth out any wrinkles before you cut.

If you have a t-shirt neckline you like already, use it as a guide.

It's always easier to cut more off later, so start small if you're unsure.

After cutting the new neckline, I sewed a stay-stitch (I used a ballpoint needle for jersey material.) A stay-stitch is used to keep the new neckline from stretching out too much. Here is an example of the white shirt's stay-stitch:

Next step, cutting the strips for the ruffles. Decide on the width of the ruffle you want. For the white t-shirt I think I cut 1 inch. For the first black t-shirt with the short ruffled neckline I cut it 1-1/2"; for the long ruffled black tee it was 2" wide.

To decide on how long to make your ruffles, I think it is suggested to double the length of the neckline. Having more is better because you can always cut off what you don't need.

I layed out the t-shirt I was cutting up on my mat, measured, and cut across with my cutter:

Here is my white clearance rack t-shirt-

From that, I cut the strips:

Ruffling:

There are a couple different ways to make a ruffle. The ruffle I made on my pillow I used a basting stitch down the middle, leaving a lot of thread at either end and then scrunched it up by pulling one piece of thread from either side.

For the white t-shirt ruffle I tried someone's suggestion of using the longest stitch on my machine (instead of a basting stitch) and then pulled either end to scrunch it.

For the black t-shirt with the shorter-ruffled neckline, I tried another person's suggestion and let my machine create the ruffle.

I set my machine on the highest tension and stitched down the center. It's like magic. The tension pulls the material behind the stitch into a ruffle. Goodbye hand scrunching (although for my pillow I liked the freedom of hand-scrunching to create a bigger more random look).

For the long ruffled black tee I did machine ruffling as well, but instead of sewing down the center, I stitched down the edge. It created a different looking ruffle.

After creating the ruffles I pinned them to the new neckline, like this. I pinned it so the ruffle hung over the neckline by maybe 1/4".

And then for the white tee I sewed the ruffle on with a zig-zag stitch (per someone's recommendation). For the black t-shirts I used a straight stitch. Not sure which stitch I prefer. For ruffles I think I like the zig-zag but try both and see which you like best.

Take your pins out as you go, before they head under the needle.

I think that's all the steps for the ruffled shirts. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

For the blue flowered shirt neckline, I followed the same steps for cutting and stay-stitching the neckline, but the flowers were another story...for another post. :)

Happy sewing!!