My daughter got this shirt for her birthday year or two ago and loved it! However, it has recently gotten a little tight and she was sad about the thought of it going to the rummage sale.
I told her I might be able to upcycle it into a “new” shirt. She was agreeable and I decided that a dolman was my best option (OK, actually I was going to do a raglan, but I would’ve had to reprint the pattern…foster kittens got to it….the dolman pattern was all printed and ready to go). The first step is to cut the sleeves off (and throw them away!) and cut the side seams and shoulder seams. I cut as close to the seams as possible. You should end up with a front piece and a back piece.
To make the dolman work, I would have to color block. Color blocking is not my strong suit! I have a hard time seeing what the finished thing will look like. I tried laying out the fabric on the pattern so I could get an idea of what it would look like.
While doing this, I realized that I needed to straighten out the sides to the shirt and the arm cutouts to make it more like a panel, so I trimmed it down some. Once I was happy with they way it looked, I sewed my pieces together. First I sewed a pink rectangle to a blue rectangle. I also hemmed the bottom of the blue since I was keeping the original t-shirt hem. Then I sewed it to the newly straightened out sides of the the old t-shirt. I also decided I was going to need to redo the neckline, so I cut the neckband off.
Then, I folded my piece of fabric in half and put it on the pattern and trimmed it to fit.
Then, I sewed the side seams. At this point, I was really worried about the neckline. It looked really wide for my very modest teen! I was hopeful that the new neckband would pull it in!
I had her try it on and I was still worried. It just seemed overly big!
I figured at this point, I might as well finish it. All I had left was the neckband and hemming the sleeves. I’m actually pretty happy with the way it turned out!
I probably could’ve made the neckband smaller, but it works as is too.
Do you upcycle your kids clothes? Do you color block?
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