Quick Overlocker T-shirt Upcycling

Hello again!
This post has been a while in the making... Just before Easter I treated myself to an overlocker. My first ever! Months of researching and doubting, do I need one, would I use it, etc etc... Then it arrived, and it took another few months for me to actually start using it. But once I'd started, the end was nowhere in sight ;) I had projects lined up that would have taken ages with the normal machine and would have come out nowhere as nice, so yay for my shiny new overlocker :)

I loved the look of this one so I tried it at one of the shows and my decision was made. The previous model was purple, such a shame they changed that ;)

When I bought a stack of tshirts for my family's Christmas presents, there was a rack of damaged shirts also. Of course I had to have a peek :)

I found this one that I had my eye on for a while now, but as it was a proper tshirt I never bought it. The man from the stall knows me (I buy presents from him all the time) so he offered it to me for free with my purchases. So sweet! It only had a small hole near the sleeve, something I could easily fix if I in fact wanted a normal tshirt. 

A good few months back I bought a great top and I wanted more like it, but with cooler prints. No time like this one to test out the new overlocker and see if my creation would resemble the original. I used the original thread in the machine, it was white so very handy, and copied the top.

The tshirt was a bit smaller but it still came out well. I have a feeling this will be worn a lot in summer and/or at yoga ;) And it has R2D2! Nothing can look bad then ;)

I had another 'proper' tshirt from the Colour the Coast run last year, which I've never worn since. So I did the same to this tshirt. Funny detail: one of the spools with the white thread ran out just after I'd finished the inside of the top. It was after all the thread that came with the machine and they never supply complete spools. No matter, as it was a 'Colour the Coast' top, I didn't think using another colour would be an issue. As the lettering was kind of pinkish purple, I replaced the empty white spool with normal purple sewing thread (I hadn't looked into buying overlocker thread yet, and it really worked! 

The purple gives the top just that extra highlight :)

I am very pleased I invested in my overlocker. Yes you can do lots of things without it, but some things are just so much quicker and look so much better with one. This is also slowly turning into another Mending Week with all these upcycling projects am going through! Yes, in the end it is still a top, only a different kind so not sure if it really is upcycling as such. These projects are so much fun, and they're quick and easy so the instant gratification that all crafters need is right there. The best thing is: it's re-using, repurposing, and not throwing stuff away and that is the best part:)