Snow White Bow Shirt Refashion

This is a post that I did for Sew Chic Upcycling Week at This Crazy Blessed Life last year.  It would be a great little shirt for the 4th of July or any other fun occasion. It has the added bonus of being made out of one shirt.   One of the things I don't like about upcycling shirts is that a lot of the times you have to buy two of the same shirt in order to make something really cute.  Well not this time.  Here is my tutorial for what we call the Snow White Bow Shirt.

I made this shirt for my daughter using a size small shirt from JoAnn's.

The first thing I did was cut the sleeves off. BE VERY CAREFUL when you do this because you will be using the sleeves later.  I made sure that when I cut, I carefully cut the serged part of the sleeve off with the sleeve (leaving it attached).  So that the fabric from the sleeve looks like the picture below.  This way I can use it again on the sleeves and I don't need to serge it.

I had to darken this next picture so that you could see the white pencil line I made.  I just put the shirt on my daughter and then marked where I wanted to cut the new hole for the sleeve. 

The shirt itself was still pretty boxy so I put it on my daughter inside out and pinned the sides so that I could take it in.

Next I took the sleeve piece with the serging still attached and cut off about a 1 inch strip. 

 

Take that little strip and gather it.  Make two of these. One for each of the sleeves.

Now with right sides together, sew the the little gathered part onto the sleeve opening in the shirt.  Make sure that it when you turn the shirt right side out that the little flutter sleeve that you just added is on the top. 

After I did this, my sleeves stuck up a little too much for my liking so I pinched the ends on and hand sewed them down.

You can get the sleeve to lie even flatter by sewing a stich along the topside of the flutter sleeve.  (see below).

Now for the bow.  Using one of the leftover sleeves, cut a 3 inch section out.

Fold this section in half hamburger style and and sew the ends.  so that you have a little cuff thing.

Cut another piece of fabric for the inside of the bow. Mine was about 3 in x 1.5 in.

Fold this in half hamburger style and sew just like you did before.

Now using insert the large cuff into the small cuff with the seams facing the back.  Glue with Fabric glue or sew on if you prefer.

Attach your bow wherever you choose.  I used my fabric glue for this as well.

Ta-Da! There you have it.  You have taken a regular craft store boxy T-shirt and made it into a cute blouse. Now doesn't that red bow remind you of Snow White?