The Button Up Refashion Swap: Recylced men's shirt dress tutorial!

The Button Up Refashion Swap: Recylced men's shirt dress tutorial!

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• 5.17.2012

A while back Miranda of One Little Minute contacted me about participating in a blogger refashion challenge--swap-style, so we all make items for each other! The challenge of the "The Button Up Refashion Swap": upcycle a men's shirt into something cute for your partner! I'm sure we've all done shirt upcycles before, but this time it's for someone else, so you've got to use their measurements and hopefully match their style a little bit!

Sounded like fun, and who am I to say no to a sewing challenge. ;)  All 10 of these talented and creative ladies participated in the swap, so check out all their posts today, too to see what THEY made out of men's shirts!

• Jennifer of Grainline Studio
• Krista of Lazy Saturdays
• Liz of Cotton & Curls
• Megan of Megan Nielsen Designs
• Melissa of I Still Love You
• Miranda of One Little Minute
• Miriam of MadMim
• Kate of See Kate Sew
• Sunni of A Fashionable Stitch
• And me, of course!

Each of us was paired with another blogger, and made her a shirt project.  My customer was Sunni of A Fashionable Stitch, and Krista of Lazy Saturdays made me something--I'll be posting about that later!

So, wanna see what I made??  And a photo tutorial for my steps in the upcycle!

• I started with a basic men's shirt, sort of sateen-ey.  I'm drawn to classic colors like this for a basic like this shirt!  I was imagining a sort of ModCloth-ey, retro-inspired, patriotic kind of thing!  So I also planned to use a bright red sateen I had.

• I cut off the pieces I knew I couldn't use in the dress; I also removed the pocket (left).  I saved the buttons, just because... maybe I'll need them someday, I guess.

• I cut the sleeves off AT the shoulder seam, as close as possible, leaving the seam allowances on the body of the shirt. I also cut down the seams of the sleeves to open them up.

• Whew, this pic is blurry... sorry!  I cut off the shirt AT the yoke of the back, lining it up and cutting the front as well.  Keeping a very straight line.

• Oops, no pic. I cut the bottom of the shirt off to give it an even hem.
• I made the body of the shirt skirt-shaped, A-line-ish, tapering down to the hem.

• Then I flatted out the sleeves for my bodice pieces, and pulled out a couple of patterns for the bodice.  I used Butterick B5371 for the top of the bodice...

• And Butterick B4915 just for the midriff panel, which I cut out of the contrast red.

• Complete with the upcycling theme, I use a recycled lining from this comforter cover that I cut apart and made into a dress ages ago.
• I also used the buttons that I had cut off from the cuffs, etc. to add to the front of the dress.  And put it together...

• And I gave it a small invisible zipper in the sideseam, which saved fabric because I could cut the back out on a fold, rather than losing the seam allowances at the center.
• Other touches: I added a double row of stitching to the hem to echo the original shirt's topstitching, and I had enough fabric from the shirt to do about a 1.5" hem to help it lay better.

Next week, the refashion results (you can see how my dress fit Sunni!) will be up in the blog hop part of the project--here's who's posting when.

Monday, May 21st: Lizzie of Cotton & Curls, Krista of Lazy Saturdays
Tuesday, May 22nd: Sunni of A Fashionable Stitch, Kate of See Kate Sew
Wednesday, May 23rd: Suzannah of Adventures in Dressmaking, Miranda of One Little Minute
Thursday, May 24th: Miriam of MadMim, Melissa of I Still Love You
Friday, May 25th: Megan of Megan Nielsen Design, Jennifer of Grainline Studio

Lots of fun refashion ideas coming up!

Update: You can see the dress on Sunni on her blog here!