HRC T-shirt Makeover
It is Wednesday evening and I just got back from the Fabric Swap I organised for sewing group. Due to some administrative difficulties it a LOT more stressful than it should have been but it all worked out and I got some nice new fabrics. I have photos of my new goodies but it's late and I want to go to bed soon. Instead, I will share my HRC T-shirt makeover with you that I pre-blogged about last Sunday (so it will show up dates Sunday rather than Wednesday, stupid blog...). So here we go:
Last weekend was supposed to be a creative weekend. I had basically planned to work on my steampunk outfit since I only have time until mid September which is only about 2 months away. OMG just thinking about it makes me panicky... But somehow actually starting something from scratch really didnt feel right so I decided to revamp some things I had stashed in a great big pile with 'to mend/change' glowing all around it. Not literally of course *grin*. In October last year, I finally booked my dream vacation and visited Salem, Massachussetts around Halloween time. Sadly this was before my blogging time but maybe I will post about that someday. I visited Boston, Salem, Cambridge (though I suppose that is part of Boston), and Providence. While in Boston, I met up with an old friend whom I hadnt seen in 11 years and who had gotten married and had a new baby. Well, not really new but since I hadnt seen him for so long, new for me. His wife was very sweet and took me out Halloween shopping (I was there 2 weeks before Halloween and already things were sold out!) and showed me this great discount fabric store to buy fabrics for the long awaited quilt. Yes, I should really get started on that one day... Anyway, one day in Boston I had just done the Freedom Trail and was going to meet the wife halfway up (I wasnt planning on doing the full trail, we were only going to walk up until where the trail crosses the bridge. Lucky for me, the Hard Rock Cafe was pretty much on the trail, right by the big food court. I used to collect HRC t-shirts, but I had to buy them on the spot myself. I used to own them from all over the place like Amsterdam, Berlin, Beijing, Barcelona, Sydney, Melbourne, Paris... for a long time I had tons... Then I decided I had enough and sold them all, or most of them as some were just to nice to sell or give away. I kept the Sydney and Paris ones. Then, in June 2008, I visited San Francisco for the first time and they had to coolest HRC top there. Slowly but surely, in the years I had stopped collecting, the girly range of HRC had expanded. Yay! So I slowly started to collect again... Being in Boston, of course I had to have a look, but sadly only to find out that their girly section had totally gone awful! They had pink shirts (yes girly but waaay too girly for me) and tops with print along the belly which really drew attention to where you didnt want it. Well, unless you have a washboard of course. After browsing for about 30 mins (and mysteriously enough not driving the sales guy crazy, though it was 11am and the place was very much deserted), I decided to just buy a normal t-shirt and pimp it when I got home. And last Sunday was the day :)
The 'before picture' As you can see it is really just a plain square t-shirt.
I didnt post a tutorial because I only sortof knew what I was going to do with this. In the end, I tailored the shirt a bit, leaving the bottom as it was but taking in the sides so that I ended up with a fitted shirt but one that was still nice and long. I then took the tshirt 'up' as I sewed up the top part to make the arms fit better. So instead of taking out the sleeves and putting them back in, I just made the top hem bigger. Saved so much time! As I was going to cut the neckline anyway, it didnt matter how the neck came out. I cut the neck the same on both sides (more by accident really) and cut the front down a tiny bit more. I couldnt cut it too much as I wanted to keep as much of the print as possible. I then cut the sleeves as well and used shirring elastic to make girly puff sleeves. I didnt hem the sleeves or the neckline, having chopped off collars of t-shirts before and that never seemed to have been a problem. I now have my spanking new (and never worn yet!) HRC Boston t-shirt. I LOVE IT! I'm so going to wear this on our next 'casual Friday' at work :) I just found the picture of the t-shirt on the HRC website, very good 'before' picture. So this was the actual t-shirt, remember?
And this is my version of it. What do you think?
The back. As you can see, I managed to keep the entire print, even if only just :)
I think that in real life and with a better photo it will look actually more tailored, especially as I wont be wearing my other clothes underneath it then LOL. I'm absolutely loving this top!! *huge happy smile* Oh yes by the way, walking the rest of the Freedom Trail with Suzanne was a ton of fun :) I have Facebooked her this link so I hope she reads it. Thanx for everything, I will post about the quilt hopefully before Halloween *wink*
Last weekend was supposed to be a creative weekend. I had basically planned to work on my steampunk outfit since I only have time until mid September which is only about 2 months away. OMG just thinking about it makes me panicky... But somehow actually starting something from scratch really didnt feel right so I decided to revamp some things I had stashed in a great big pile with 'to mend/change' glowing all around it. Not literally of course *grin*. In October last year, I finally booked my dream vacation and visited Salem, Massachussetts around Halloween time. Sadly this was before my blogging time but maybe I will post about that someday. I visited Boston, Salem, Cambridge (though I suppose that is part of Boston), and Providence. While in Boston, I met up with an old friend whom I hadnt seen in 11 years and who had gotten married and had a new baby. Well, not really new but since I hadnt seen him for so long, new for me. His wife was very sweet and took me out Halloween shopping (I was there 2 weeks before Halloween and already things were sold out!) and showed me this great discount fabric store to buy fabrics for the long awaited quilt. Yes, I should really get started on that one day... Anyway, one day in Boston I had just done the Freedom Trail and was going to meet the wife halfway up (I wasnt planning on doing the full trail, we were only going to walk up until where the trail crosses the bridge. Lucky for me, the Hard Rock Cafe was pretty much on the trail, right by the big food court. I used to collect HRC t-shirts, but I had to buy them on the spot myself. I used to own them from all over the place like Amsterdam, Berlin, Beijing, Barcelona, Sydney, Melbourne, Paris... for a long time I had tons... Then I decided I had enough and sold them all, or most of them as some were just to nice to sell or give away. I kept the Sydney and Paris ones. Then, in June 2008, I visited San Francisco for the first time and they had to coolest HRC top there. Slowly but surely, in the years I had stopped collecting, the girly range of HRC had expanded. Yay! So I slowly started to collect again... Being in Boston, of course I had to have a look, but sadly only to find out that their girly section had totally gone awful! They had pink shirts (yes girly but waaay too girly for me) and tops with print along the belly which really drew attention to where you didnt want it. Well, unless you have a washboard of course. After browsing for about 30 mins (and mysteriously enough not driving the sales guy crazy, though it was 11am and the place was very much deserted), I decided to just buy a normal t-shirt and pimp it when I got home. And last Sunday was the day :)
The 'before picture' As you can see it is really just a plain square t-shirt.I didnt post a tutorial because I only sortof knew what I was going to do with this. In the end, I tailored the shirt a bit, leaving the bottom as it was but taking in the sides so that I ended up with a fitted shirt but one that was still nice and long. I then took the tshirt 'up' as I sewed up the top part to make the arms fit better. So instead of taking out the sleeves and putting them back in, I just made the top hem bigger. Saved so much time! As I was going to cut the neckline anyway, it didnt matter how the neck came out. I cut the neck the same on both sides (more by accident really) and cut the front down a tiny bit more. I couldnt cut it too much as I wanted to keep as much of the print as possible. I then cut the sleeves as well and used shirring elastic to make girly puff sleeves. I didnt hem the sleeves or the neckline, having chopped off collars of t-shirts before and that never seemed to have been a problem. I now have my spanking new (and never worn yet!) HRC Boston t-shirt. I LOVE IT! I'm so going to wear this on our next 'casual Friday' at work :) I just found the picture of the t-shirt on the HRC website, very good 'before' picture. So this was the actual t-shirt, remember?
And this is my version of it. What do you think?
The front (self-timer again, am trying here)
The back. As you can see, I managed to keep the entire print, even if only just :)
Thank you so much for linking up. I am having a Stash-Busting September party. Check the blog for details soon...
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