Peplum Cowboy Shirt

Yes...you read that right...the peplum cowboy shirt is my latest sewing adventure. While in Pennsylvania earlier this year, my mom, brother and I went thrifting (one of my favorite pastimes). I found some great stuff including two XL mens button up shirts; one a purple plaid pearl buttoned cowboy shirt and the other an indian motif button up. I pictured sundresses made out of the shirts but haven't actually tackled the task.

The other day I saw a blog post where a girl took a men's shirt and turned it into a fitted shirt with a peplum bottom. Stinkin' cute! I decided that the purple plaid pearl buttoned cowboy shirt that I had tucked away would be perfect for this re-creation.

 Some 'before' pictures...

It ended up being much more difficult than it seemed. Cutting the sleeves off, resizing them to my size, and reattaching at my length....whoa....not easy. I actually messed up pretty bad but you really can't tell on the outside of the finished product. And the only reason I kept going to make the sleeves work (after messing up royally more than once) is because without them it was looking more along the lines of a snug jean vest....and that's rarely a good look.

See what I mean.....?

Soooo...here is the finished piece:

I ended up wearing it out to eat that night! I'm pretty happy with my first "real shirt" redo...$2 men's shirt turned custom women's shirt! Hopefully more to come! :)

C Tee to E Tee

Refashioning is my new favorite thing. I've recently come across some awesome blogs about girls who take thrift store clothes that most people wouldn't take a second look at, ill fitting clothes of their own, or even their boyfriend/husbands old clothes and make some seriously amazing clothing for themselves (or kiddos). One of my favorite sites of the bunch is Cotton & Curls. This girl is ridiculously talented; if I could learn a fraction of her skill I'd be happy.

One of her projects was taking a simple mens T-shirt and making it into a fitted T for herself. She painted stripes on hers as well but I wasn't feeling that ambitious.

Cotton & Curls 2012

Both of those shirts were originally men's t-shirts...whaaaat!? Awesome.

While Collin was at work I peeped into his "goodwill bag" and pulled out a few T-shirts to practice. Here is the post, complete with directions, from her blog.

Here is my attempt:














After trying the shirt on inside-out, I pinned and sewed. That easy! Well, I had to re-sew a few times but it's actually pretty fool proof. You can't see any of the seams when it's done...no matter how many times you sew over it.

The sleeves and armpits were the most annoying part. I don't know how to make actual sleeves but the tutorial didn't make them any different than I did so I just went with it.

Next, I cut the bottom hem into a U shape and I cut out the collar and then cut the neck opening a little deeper.

It was a pain in the butt but I wanted to keep the original collar but put it into the new neckline so I had to seam rip the entire thing so that it was stretchable. It ended up fitting perfectly.

It came together rather nicely I think!

There we have it. Glamor shots and all. I have more projects in mind and will post when I get the guts to try another one!

Have a great week!