Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Try it Tuesday!: Finished man's polo remake..and next month's craft challenge!

So far I have very much had a blast having a set "craft challenge" to do once a month and invite anyone to join in the fun!  This particular remake of a man's polo shirt...however...just about did me in...
{Click here or photo to go to Grey Luster Girl's tutorial I used}

And...here's some highlights of my frustration!  

I bought a $4 consignment shop XL man's polo.  First, note the thicker-type collar on the polo. 
 

You would probably have better luck getting a shirt like Grey Luster Girl's that has that thinner-type collar for later making the bow collar work better:

I cut off the thick collar and turned the shirt inside out  to remake a hem on the shirt.  Whenever I try something new to something cheap, I don't always go super professional...which I'm especially glad in this!  I just turned the collar down once and hemmed it from there.

I cut off the sleeves to resize them to not be large man arms.

At this point, I also tried on the shirt inside out to pin it in where I would later take it in to give me a waist and bust.

I used a comfy tshirt I wear to initially resize the sleeves...I changed this later. 

I would also recommend instead of cutting the top of the sleeve off to use the bottom hem again, just cut off the bottom part instead so you have a sleeve with one hem alone (instead of a top and bottom hem which will later make your sleeve stick out funny on top!).  Note to self.  Boo. Had I just followed her tutorial correctly, this would have not been a problem;)

I pinned the sleeve inside out to resew the top portion I sized down.

And then finished off the end of the sleeve, too, by hemming it.

As shown!  Sewing in a circle presents interesting challenges to me.

Finished sleeve end (I didn't have grey thread!):

Then I pinned the sleeve back into the tshirt.


Since this sleeve is smaller than the original one I needed to sew up the sleeve hole where there's no sleeve to connect! If you try this, check out her blog instructions for the real tutorial.  I'm trying to show here how I pinned the bottom part of the sleeve back into the gigantic hole the original one left.  When I sewed this shut I sewed both sides of the sleeve and left the bottom part for later when I took in the shirt.

{Insert imaginary photo of taking in the sides for the first time}

{Insert frustration when I tried the shirt on and the sleeves were still large and the shirt was not actually taken in very much}

{Insert repinning the sides and sewing them in tighter...and then too tight...and then NOT fixing it because I had to head out of town emergently...and then deciding to leave the sides as is...see below}

So when I decided the smaller sleeves on the tutorial were way cuter than the larger sleeves I cut I enlisted another shirt of mine with more desirable sleeves.  With the sleeves sewn into the shirt I trimmed them down and redid it all.

With what was left over from my sleeve trimmings, I sewed a long line of gray fabric together as her blog shows.   I put this with right sides facing together with another strip of fabric from a different gray shirt I cut up for this part and sewed it together.  Then turned right side out to see how it worked...

It didn't work very good.  The bow was really skinny...I actually just pinned it on here because there was no point in sewing it on when I didn't like it!
Here's the shirt without the bow.  I only really like how the sleeves turned out!  Using a polo with the thick collar, it left an awkwardly wide v-neck.  In this photo I pinned the button area closer together to make it not so weird fitting...

If I was going to wear this today, I would add this sweet H & M bib necklace and feel way better about the shirt!!  I would also have liked to take time to take out the sides a bit more from my bit extreme taking in.  I like how the blogger had her sides a bit less fitted;)

So did you try it?  Love it?  Hate it?  

For this next month...if you'd like you should join me for another craft challenge and we'll do a not sewing-related one!  Really, the best part is just staying accountable to create something - especially if you are inspired when others are also - and a deadline!

I hopped over to pinterest to my friend Lacey's site and found these on her projects board!  I'm going to choose one of these or both to make.  These were chosen because you'll get to go to some place like Mac's Hardware, get free popcorn and coffee, and make a really cheap awesome bracelet or necklace!  And I'm really into bracelets right now...

{Click photo to follow to tutorial}
{a braided hex nut bracelet - the gold one picture}


Happy creating!  If you make either of these this month, send me a photo and we'll show off your handiwork!  Finish by September 1...and have fun!

xoxo



3 comments (+add yours?)

Gadabout said...

Love it! If I have some time, I'll try this! Thanks, Janelle

Linnea said...

I can't believe the SLEEVES are the thing that fits the best. Sleeves are so hard! Also another thing people might want to take into consideration is her polo was striped and she took the time to match up the stripes which is also hard... so if you get an unstriped one to start with life is simpler. Think how much you learned in this one project! Sometimes I think you learn more with a slightly failed project than a finished one. Way to go.

Lace said...

I really like it-especially with the necklace. I think sometimes the fun/frustrating part is that they don't always turn out like the original, but it's the desire to create that is still filled.