Another Shirt Tutorial

I bought skinny jeans and a cute cardigan the other day. I was excited to wear the jeans with my boots, but didn’t think I had a shirt to wear under the cardigan (doing laundry would probably help me know what clothes I have, wouldn’t it?), so I spent a little over an hour making this shirt:

(What you can’t see in this picture is that Jace is slamming the door into my back.)

The fabric I used is a soft sage green nylon from the stash my MIL found for me at a thrift store. I used my standard go to pattern for making a sleeveless top, but narrowed the pattern by about 2 inches in the middle since I didn’t plan on gathering the neckline at all. I’m not sure what I did with the pattern piece for the front of the shirt, so the back and the front match exactly at the neckline. After cutting the front and back pieces, I cut a bunch of 1 inch wide strips of the same material. Then, starting at the hem, I sewed the strips to the front of the shirt. I sewed 1/8” from the top edge of the strip (I didn’t want them folding over on themselves like would happen had I sewn down the middle).

I continued up the whole shirt, overlapping each strip enough to cover the stitching on the previous strip.

Then I trimmed off the excess on each side and sewed the front and back of the shirt together, right sides together, at the top of the shoulders and sides. I then trimmed the neckline and arm holes with more the 1” strips by folding them over the raw edge and sewing around. I left the hem raw.

And then it was finished! Sewing the strips on was very time consuming, but all in all this was one of the most simple shirts I have made.

(Like the diapers strewn all over the place in the background of the picture? That’s what Jace had fun doing while I finished sewing the shirt. Also note the little hand having oh-so-much-fun hitting the doorstop.)

I’m really happy with how the top turned out, and LOVE the way it looks with my new jeans, cardigan and boots (which you can’t see very well in the picture…I really should get a full length mirror). I felt so stylish wearing it.

-Jeans: Vigoss (bought at Maurices—Clearance!)
-Boots: Maurices
-Shirt: Made by me!
-Camisole: Maurices
-Cardigan: Target
-Necklace: Maurices
-Bracelet: made by my friend Natalie
(And if you hadn’t guessed yet, Maurices is my favorite store.)

And then Mr. Jace decided Mommy had taken enough pictures and it was time to be picked up.

I’ll be linking up with some great parties (their buttons are in my left side bar) including Real Momma, Real Style. Be sure and check them out!

Thanks for stopping by!