Stripy Love!

DH gave a couple of t-shirts for the refashion pile sometime last year. I wanted to use them to knock off this dress...I try on clothes these days and the first thought that pops in my head "nah, I bet I can make one just like it"



The old pic in the mirror trick :-)


 


 















Fast forward a few months and I bought some knit to make this Cynthia Rowley pattern. I wanted to make a muslin first since I don't have a serger and me being me, the knit I bought has an overall stripe to it. I still am not sure how I'm going to match up the sleeves.

The only way I could "make it work" was to cut up both t-shirts and come up with something. I made up the striped fabric, doing the exact thing for front and back, till I had a reasonable length. I shortened the pattern by an inch; overall, the dress ended up being about 3 inches shorter.

A before pic is almost mandatory, isn't it:-)
 



front and back pattern pieces on the fold, side by side




matched up stripes for front & back using the lengthen/shorten line on the pattern as a guide

 After cutting out the pieces, I thought it might be nice to have a topstitching detail on the stripe seams. A small debate about whether to change the thread for the brown stripe.. laziness won, inevitably. I decided it might be a design detail to show the white thread. I faked a cover stitch on the hem too.. just two rows parallel to each other.















Sleeves:
I struggled with figuring out how to piece the sleeves together so the stripes would match. I didn't quite get it right but I'm thrilled with the result! I used one sleeve from each t-shirt to get to elbow length (view B on the pattern). The brown t-shirt had a grey band already, I took it as sign and just let it be.