Sunday, August 12, 2012

Flirty Shirt Skirt

My husband and I disagree about clothes and fashion.  Mostly, I think clothing should fit well, look nice and match to a certain extent; while Joshua feels that clothing should be cheap, feel soft, and be worn until disintegration occurs.  Joshua will proudly wear t-shirts that he has had since high school, or wear shorts with a pocket so worn out that you can see the imprint of his wallet without the benefit of x-ray vision! 

Fortunately, he usually manages to look good, and I try not to complain too much about the t-shirt collection he has amassed.  He did require a wardrobe upgrade recently, however, in the area of work attire.  So we picked up a few polo shirts which managed to meet two of his for mentioned clothing requirements, they were soft and inexpensive.  Unfortunately, while the medium sized shirts fit fine before washing, they became a bit too snug after...

Long story short, Joshua got the right size shirts and I got inspired to greater heights of craftiness as I turned his too small shirt into a comfy and stylish jersey skirt!  And it only took me 20 minutes!!!  (sometimes my craftiness feels like a super power!) 

Turn this...


into this!
 I'm so excited about this polo refashion, that I thought I'd share a quick tutorial!
For this project you will need:
- a shirt of some kind, polo or regular t-shirt doesn't matter.
- sewing machine
- thread
- scissors
- elastic

To begin, lay out the shirt and cut a straight line just below the arm pits.  (Note, I cut mine just above because I didn't want the skirt to be quite that short)


Next, turn the skirt piece inside out.  Fold down and pin the cut edge to accommodate your elastic, I used 1" elastic so I folded it about 1 1/4"
(I had a little extra fabric at the edges because of where I cut the shirt, but I just folded it in and it was no problem, if you cut your shirt under the arm pits, you shouldn't have this issue.)

Now, sew the back edge down, starting at one seam and stopping at the other, leave the front half un-sewn for now.


Ok, now you're ready to insert the elastic, just along the back edge of the skirt (you can have the elastic go all the way around if you wish, but that's a lot of elastic and it isn't necessary)  Use a safety pin and slide the elastic through the tube you made along the back of the skirt.
Try the skirt on or measure to make sure the skirt waist fits well before sewing the edges in place.

Once the fit is right, sew down each side seam to secure the elastic.

Cut the extra elastic, and now you're ready to sew up the front!
And you're done!


Forgive the  atrocious picture quality, it's ridiculously hard to take pictures of yourself, but the skirt is way cute and the best part is that it's quick and easy and...

You don't have to hem!!!
 Hmmm, perhaps Joshua's stash of t-shirts is in jeopardy after all!






2 comments:

  1. Love it! You are Sew Creative in CO!!

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  2. Love the blog, Sess!!! And love the refashion...you are oh sew crafty ;)

    ReplyDelete