Saturday, February 21, 2009

My first "Recon"

Reconstruction, that is. I've been wanting to try to recycle some clothing for some time. There are so many awesome ideas and tutorials out there! I finally found a project that looked about my speed (also, Logan needed some new shirts), so I decided to recon some of my old sleepshirts into raglan sleeve tees for Logan. There is an awesome (free!) pattern here. I did have to shorten the sleeves a little but otherwise the size was good, which is good - one thing at a time.

These are the sleepshirts that I started out with.

I wanted to preserve the screenprinting on the front for cuteness sake, so I started out by cutting out the shirt front, attempting to center the images on the new front. I also turned Mickey right-side up. Then I cut out the back and sleeves from the remaining fabric in the body of the shirts. I also thought it would be fun to swap the sleeves for contrast. I didn't follow the instructions that came with the pattern, as they called for a set-in sleeve. I didn't see the point in a raglan style top, so I sewed the front and back pieces to the sleeves, then sewed the side seams as a whole. I also salvaged the ribbing from the original shirts to make collar bands. Then it was just hems and wear! I did save myself a little time by cutting the sleeves on the existing shirt hems, so that I didn't have to hem the sleeves. I hate hemming.

Anyway, here they are! Logan models the first one that I made, and plays with my tape measure. Here is the second one. I think it is the cuter of the two, but then, I like Mickey Mouse! Logan with both his new shirts.

Yay! Now I'm ready for some serious recon! Bring on the Goodwill jeans!!

2 comments:

Sarah said...

You are too talented!!!

It's hurting my self-esteem. Please stop. Thanks so much!

=)

Janene said...

Impressive Katie! They look great!