I love to ‘upcycle’. It’s recycling old stuff into better stuff. Recently I went through some old clothes and found 3 t-shirts I’d bought in Vietnam about a year ago. I think I wore the blue one, once. So instead of just throwing them away I thought about what I could turn them into that I might actually wear.
Yup, that’s me and my daggy modelling! I turned the tees into a singlet, a skirt and an off-shoulder top.
I didn’t even need to sew anything, I just needed a pair of sharp scissors. (In saying that, the t-shirts are overlocked and I don’t think they’ll come apart. Well at least it doesn’t look like they will.)
For the singlet I simply cut out a deep neck and cut off the sleeves. The trick to getting it symmetrical is to cut the neck half way, fold it over as a cutting guide and cut the other side. Same with the sleeves, cut off one then use it to measure where to cut on the other side.
To make a skirt I worked out how long I wanted it then folded the bottom of the tee up to make a straight line as a cutting guide. I made it above the sleeves because I wanted the two strips of extra fabric to be tied together. It looked cute but I like to wear long tops which covered the ties and made funny bumps – so I cut them off and sewed up the sides instead. Ok so I did use my sewing machine in the end. I could of also folded the top down instead of sewing but I didn’t want it too short.
I actually intended to just cut a bigger neck in this tee but made it too wide and it became an off-shoulder top which I like better anyway!
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