The refashioners 2015! Get Shirty!

 

Portia from the makery has made this years refashioners challenge a lot more interesting this year! as well as having the actual refashioners (kind of like the avengers but with less capes) she's also opened it up to everyone else as well!

And this year there is a boat load of prizes and I mean a boat load! 

and well I just could not resist! This year theme is "get shirty"

So naturally I raided my dads wardrobe for a suitable shirt to refashion, I already had some ideas of what I wanted to achieve so I based which shirt I picked on that. (I would have used one of Mr Knitwits shirts but we are about the same size so there wouldn't have been a huge amount of fabric to work with.

Here's the shirt I chose, Its a men's basic grey cotton shirt.

First I removed the sleeves, and them cut some stripes from them so I could make myself a long neck tie collar type thingy.

Here's my lines drawn onto the sleeves and then me pinning them together to make a long strip.

Next I put a pleat in each of the shoulders to make it fit my own shoulders and then stitched it. I only stitched from the front pin to the back pin to give more of a loose vented feel.

Then I had to fix the problem of the armholes being too large, so i made a box pleat along the side seam. 

Which resulted in bias binding to neaten up the armholes! I used what was left of the sleeves to create a skinny binding.

Next I knew I wanted to add some oomph to the shirt. and although the challenge requires for the result to be mainly shirt, you can add extras. Such as a lovely lace doily your mum found in a charity shop!

I pinned each individual petal and the inside to make sure it didn't move. Them I stitched around the petal outside and around the outer edge of the circle. I used a shorter stitch length to make sure I made contact with the doily at as many points as possible.

Then just to be different I cut out the centre circle of the shirt material in a reverse appliqué sort of style! and FINISHED!

Here's my shoulder pleats, I did two rows of top stitching to make it look more interesting.

Here's my neck tie, I removed both the collar and the collar stand to attach it. Its attached right sides together and them top stitched down.

 I love that it can be worn open and tied in a bow, although I think I prefer it open.

Here's my ties made from sections of the sleeves, I folded them over in a similar way to bias binding so I wouldn't have to turn them through.

And true to form here's some super awkward pictures of me wearing it, my dad took these which is why I look like I'm about to pee my pants.

 Front and back , here you can see I also added knife pleats to the front bodice to give a lil definition at the waist.

 Cheeky side view.

Trying not to pee.

He also took this picture of me today so I could have a new blogger profile picture! What do ya think? I set up the shot he clicked the button! 

Much Love

Frankie

xxx