Thursday, February 25, 2010

T-Shirt Makeover- Quick and Granny

The whole granny-chic thing has been around for a while now, but doilies have really taken the spotlight lately. (Have you seen the Megadoily?!) I've been itching to stick some doilies on everything, so I was really excited to see a bin of little 99 cent ones at Joann's the other day. (I know, it would be much cooler if they were actually vintage doilies, but whatever, we're faking cool here.)

Today, I realized that they belonged on this $5 Target tshirt I had. Here's what I did:
First, layout the doily arrangement on the shirt. I ended up trying the shirt on to do this, which was really helpful in showing me that my original 3 doily plan would have looked like way too much on me. 


Take shirt back off and loosely pin everything in place. 


Now turn the shirt inside out and put a scrap of fusible interfacing over the doily area. Make sure the fusible side is down, and draw the general shape of where the doilies are, maybe even a little bit larger than where they are. 

Cut it out. Then take off the doilies so you can iron down the interfacing. (If you don't have interfacing, you could try this project without it, but it really helps to stabilize the stretchy tshirt material so you don't end up with something heinous that makes you curse your machine and never try sewing ever again.)


Turn right side out and pin the doilies back in place. Make sure you pin any parts that fold down under the collar well. Stitch in place. I went down the edge of the collar, back around the outsides of both doilies, and then stitched a circle closer to the center of each one. I tried to stay on the chunkier parts of the crochet so that you don't see as much thread on the shirt. 

Trim loose threads and that's it. Go have a cookie. 

Now here's a picture-of-myself-in-the-mirror-with-the-camera-blocking-my-face-shot for you:
I like it with a cardigan. Now all I need is spring. 


15 comments:

  1. LOVE IT! That looks really awesome, Jessica. I wish I had known how crafty you were when I was living in Cincy!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are so wonderful! Stacey Conrad

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jessica, that is so pretty and looks great on you. I saw this thing on the news last night about this young woman in Nashville who remakes vintage clothes and jewelry, and has a shop I think. She so reminded me of you. Maybe we could find her! Come and see me, Love you , Mom

    ReplyDelete
  4. I know Carmen- know that we are blog buddies I always wonder why we weren't better friends!

    ReplyDelete
  5. You need to stop being so awesome with the sewing machine... it doesn't help me feel ok that mine is broken still.

    PS. The shirt looks great!

    ReplyDelete
  6. oooooo... i love this! i have so many v-neck tees and this would some excitement to my wardrobe. i just might have to take a trip to joann's today.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great tutorial and neat t-shirt decoration, I like it!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Super hot. Maybe we could get a drink sometime?

    Nick

    ReplyDelete
  9. Great t-shirt! I love the granny doilies. They add such a fun touch to the otherwise plain shirt. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  10. found you on katie's blog! love the color and texture. great idea!

    ReplyDelete
  11. i so love this shirt idea. i have like ten of those pocket tees...AND they're selling them at target again this spring. yay.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for your comments-I LOVE to hear from you, so speak up! And I usually reply in email to your questions, so make sure your profile has your email.