Shirt Refashion/Ruffle Top 1

So I absolutely love a lot of tutorials for ruffle tops I’ve seen on some of my favorite sewing blogs. This is just the first variation I was able to try. The main tutorial I used is from the homemade by jill blog, and this tutorial too from Make it and Love it. 

So I took a shirt I liked the fit of and traced around it, I used the back of some Christmas wrapping paper…worked awesome by the way. (Next time I’ll leave even more room for seams, etc). Just turn inside out, and tuck the sleeves inside to trace.

(I apologize, the lighting in the pictures is terrible, it was dark of night.)

This was the original shirt. XXL and really drapey.

This is the shirt laid out flat. Lots of material to work with.Then, I cut all the seams apart. And then I used the pattern pieces I made earlier to cut out the parts of the shirt.  Sew side and shoulder seams

With the sleeves sewn in.

Time for the ruffle part!  I used elastic thread. You hand wind the elastic thread onto the bobbin, and use regular thread for the top thread in your machine. Then just run a straight stitch down the middle of your fabric.
I cut two widths (1 & 3/4 inch and 1 inch) of fabric from the leftovers I trimmed off the original shirt. Then I layered the wider one underneath the narrower strip and fed them through my sewing machine.
And it was like magic, seriously. Perfectly spaced ruffles came out the other side!   So much easier than basting, pulling threads, having those threads snap, sewing it again, and then spreading to out evenly.

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Then I sewed the ruffle to the neckline, and viola!

Here’s me wearing it on Thanksgiving!