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Jan 1, 2019

Tunics for a Friend

I have an adorable young friend who inherited a bunch of XL shirts from her father.  She asked for my help in refashioning some of them before winter break was over and she heads back to school to finish the last few busy months of her dental hygiene program.

We only finished two that day, so the rest will have to wait for after graduation!

The first one was a combination of two shirts.  The solid gray one had a stain on the pocket, so we just used the lower half and attached it to the top half of a super soft plaid cotton.





She wanted it more fitted in the back, so we added an elastic casing.  She liked the bustle effect that the gathers made.



We added back the original cuffs to the bottom of the shortened sleeves.  We also replaced the original buttons on the gray shirt with extra buttons from the plaid shirt to make it more uniform in the front.


The next top was from a black on black striped shirt.  We started by cutting the shirt at the waist.  We added bust darts and back darts to make the bodice more fitted.


We removed the collar, but left the neck band.  Since the neck band was too big for her neck, we ran a seam down the back and top stitched each side of the center seam.


Once we were happy with the fit of the bodice, we gathered and reattached the bottom half of the shirt, retaining the original shirt hem.


She liked the original cuff detail, so we just cut the sleeves shorter and reattached them.


It was a fun day visiting and sewing!

I like to link to these great parties!

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7 comments:

  1. Susan, you have scored again! Your friend looks darling and I love the results. Men’s shirting is often really great fabric, isn’t it? Congratulations to you both.

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    1. Thank you! I agree, men's shirts often have very nice fabric, and XL gives you quite a bit to work with!

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  2. How nice for her to have a part of her dad with her whenever she wears those cute shirts you created for her. They fir perfectly.

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    1. Thanks Beth! She was excited to turn some of his shirts into something wearable for her, and she learned some new sewing tricks to help her in the future!

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  3. Oops, that should've said fit perfectly. :)

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Thanks for taking the time to comment. I appreciate the feedback and always look forward to reading what you have to say! Susan