My first shirt refashion

I realize this months is Food and Outdoors month for me but I don't really have an update on that front yet.

I first started sewing when I was.... twelve maybe? I may have sort of played around before then (at home and perhaps at Achievement Days) but I don't remember. What I do remember is some of my first sewing projects.

For Girls Camp either my first or second year, we made camp pants in Young Womens. These pants rocked my world. They are wide leg which I just love and they were so comfortable. My pants was this jungle print. Green with lions and bears and stuff. Cute jungle. I didn't think to measure my draw string prior to making it. It went around me three times. Nothing a pair of scissors couldn't fix. From the same pattern, I made a pair of black pants that the waist band was (for some reason) too low for comfort. I wore them anyway for volunteering at COSI because they were my only black pants and it wasn't really a problem. Just made me self-conscious. My sister made one from a tiger print. I own those now. They are warm.

Another early sewing project was finishing a dress that my sister started. It was yellow--two different types of material. I loved that style of dress and the material was so cute and pretty. I felt bad that my sister couldn't wear it because it was too small of a size (I think that was why she didn't finish it) but at the same time, I liked that I was the beneficiary of such an unfortunate event.

My first large project was my prom dress when I was 16. I don't know if I have a decent picture of me standing up in it anywhere. I'll have to search.

Other large projects were my oldest sister's wedding dress and my mom's regency style dress and coat. Uh, well the dress anyway. The coat is still unfinished....

Just recently I introduced refashioning to my skillset. I'm still learning but this was my first on-my-own attempt and it took me about 30 minutes. The dress form (see??? I remembered it's name--not a mannequin for those of you who saw my facebook status a while back) on its smallest size is very nearly my size. I think it could go just a teensy bit smaller and be my size perfectly.

Ignore everything that looks piled in the background. I promise there's an order and it really isn't just piled.

 I started by turning the shirt inside out and cutting the sleeves off at the seam.

Ta da! Still a hugely sized shirt.

Take picture of adorable helper. Yes, those are cats on my pants. I'm still in PJs.

I used pins to mark where I wanted my new side seams to go. I took another shirt that has a fit I like and loosely followed that. I could have used one of my pencils but I find the white one doesn't work so good and blue doesn't really show up on blue. I should get chalk for this. Meanwhile, pins.

I just sewed the sides and then cut off the excess material. I did nothing to the sleeve seams. I was going to bring the shoulder seam in and reattach the sleeves but modify them into something I liked better but.... then I tried it.

Who needs to mess with the sleeves when this is the perfect cap sleeve???

This is all the excess material. Look at how much I cut off! Why did I not do this sooner? I love my clothes to fit me and I like this shirt. Why did I live with so large for so long? It simply didn't occur to me to modify my clothes before. How lame of me, I tell you.

If I owned a serger, I probably would have gone over the sleeves just to kinda pretty them up. But I don't have a serger and I don't care for it to be perfect. It's not that type of shirt.

I also cut off part of the collar. You can see the before of the collar a few pictures above. I actually wore the shirt with the collar for half the day before I realized what else bothered me about the shirt. Off came the color and I was 100% in love with my *new* shirt!

Even my grandma says it's cute on me.