Sewing 101 - Repurposing a Man's Shirt into a Tunic! Part Three!

You've made it to the final part!!  We've got our shaped bodice from part one, and our pin tucked & gathered bottom from part two, so now we're ready to attach those suckers together and add some flair!

Grab those sleeves you cut off in part one.  One will be for bias binding, one will be for ruffles.  We'll tackle the bias binding first, so get one sleeve.

Cut off the cuff.

And cut up the seam line.  Cut that seam of completely while you're at it.

Get your ruler and rotary cutter and cut strips at roughly 45 degrees to make bias strips for your arm holes.  I used the ironed-in crease as a guide for 90 degrees.  Cut 3 or 4 strips.

Side note: if you don't have a fancy ruler and rotary cutter, do not fret!  Cutting at 45 degrees gives you the best amount of give because your fabric becomes kinda stretchy due to being cut on the bias, but if you cut at a 40 degree angle no one will know.  Just DON'T cut straight strips because they won't work with you around the curves of your arm hole.

Now get your strips and sew them together, end to end, to make one long strip of bias binding.  Then sew, backstitch, and sew again to lock in your stitching.

Trim any excess fabric.

(not pictured) Iron a 1/4" crease along the length of one side of your strip.  Pin your bias strip to the arm hole with your fabric right sides together.  Make sure your crease is facing you (see the picture below, I know I'm not making any sense).

Now, start at one side and stop at the other.  Do not sew the entire arm hole, we'll get to that in the next couple of steps.

Grab the two ends of the bias strip and pin them together.  Stitch & trim any excess fabric.

Now sew the remaining bit of bias binding to the arm hole.

Trim.

Fold your bias binding over enclosing the raw edge.

Pin in place & sew.

For some reason I took three pictures of pinning and none of sewing.  Whoops!  Sew close to the edge of your bias binding at about the 1/2" seam marking.  Arm holes are now done!

Ruffles

Get your other sleeve.  Cut off the cuff and cut up the seam line as you did with the first one.  This one is for the ruffles on the front, so you do want to cut along the straight grain this time.  I cut up the crease, using that line as a guide.

Then I placed the two halves on top of each other and cut 1" strips.

I cut six.

Using a long and loose basting stitch (set your stitch length to the longest it will go and loosen your tension a little), sew down the center of your strip.  If you cut 1" strips, use the 1/2" seam line as a guide.  :)

Gather to your heart's content.  You can see that I used my vintage trim for the center ruffle.  I cut a 1 1/4 yard piece of flat lace in half and used one piece per side.

Pin baste your ruffle in place.

Move your tension setting back to normal and sew your ruffles on.  Be sure to lock the ends of your stitching (sew, backstitch, and sew again).

Almost done!  We just need to sew the bodice to the bottom!  I stitched them together using a 1/2" seam allowance and then stitched the seam allowance onto the bodice to make it lay flat.

And you're all done!  I had a little tie lying around that I used here in the picture.  It's just a strap that's maybe 50" long.  Verrrrry detailed instructions on how to sew a strap can be found HERE via allfreecrafts.com.

If you decide to make this top using my tutorial, please send me a pic or a link to your blog and I'll be sure to add you to my sidebar!  Email me if you use any of my tutes and I'll be sure to put you up there.  fullertonregan(at)yahoo(dot)com.

xoxo,