I always get nervous sewing without a pattern. I think it’s my hate of wasting anything – what if I cut wrong? What if I make it too small? I’ll have wasted that dollar I spent on a t-shirt from Salvation Army!
Inspired by Dana’s 90 Minute Shirt tutorial, I attempted to make a (fitted) shirt out of an old t-shirt. Her pattern was intended for little ones, but since I don’t have any little ones, I thought I’d modify it for me. To make the “pattern”, I used an old shirt of mine as a guide for the bodice, but cutting out sleeves made me nervous – mostly because I didn’t have much fabric left. Finally I got smart, and pulled out a sleeve pattern piece from a dress I made a year or so ago.
After cutting a test sleeve out of other fabric and determining it would work, I wound up with this:
Obviously I need to add the other sleeves, and I’m going to smooth out the curves on the neckline. I’m also pondering what to do with the neckline – add some flowers? ruffles? extra layers of material to spruce it up?
And if I don’t count the time I spent thinking about this shirt and debating what to do with the sleeves, it probably did only take me 90 minutes or so.