T-Shirt Tanks

Happy 4th of July!

I know that the official day of summer already occurred, but the 4th always licks off the summer with a bang!

I have been sitting on this project for a few months.  I promised to work on this for a friend and kept putting it off.  But now, no more excuses!  I have completed this project and think that it was a quick and simple project.

My friend got this idea from Pintrest and I found the source of the project.  It started off as a no sew t-shirt tank project, but I only use fusible webbing for when I'm in a pinch or when a needle is not the most practical way to go.  My machine will make it more durable, so that is what I did.

The project is from the blog Crafter Hours and it is how to make a t-shirt into a tied tank top.

First you take a t-shirt you don't mind cutting up.  But pick one that you would wear to the beach, the pool, hanging around the house or running errands on the weekend.

Cut the neck off straight, then the sleeves and a few strips from the bottom.  I threw away the very bottom edge that has the hemming.  Cut 2 more strips from the bottom.

Then seam  the top cut edges where the neck is big enough to form a casing for the tying strips.

Snip the strips so they are long and thin, not a circle.  Then thread the strips, one in the front and one in the back.  Bunch the fabric up a bit and tie on the shoulders with the strips.  Trim away any excess striping material once you have the ties at a good length.

I left two out of the three shirts I did with the cut raw edge at the bottom.  Once that is done, then you are done!!

Another one:

And one more:

This one I also put a casing at the bottom and threaded another strip so that it can cinch on the side.  This t-shirt was a men's XXL, so I had to take it in at the sides.  I had plenty of room at the bottom to do the cinching.

There you go, go forth and cut up all of your husband's t-shirts so that you can have some chic beach shirts and all-round comfy tees.

The 'Do Rag

Yesterday, I attended a company sporting event on St. Pete Beach, FL.  It was called the America II Corporate Sports Fest 2012.  It was a blast!!

Normally, when I workout,  I just wear my hair in a ponytail and bobby pin my bangs up.  That, however, does not control the whispies that I get from the wind and general movement.  I hate the whispies!

For Sports Fest, I knew there would be cameras and people taking pictures, so I wanted to ensure that those whispies don't even get an appearance.  I decided to wear a bandana on my head, in a 'do-rag fashion.

Rockin' the 'Do Rag!!

It worked like a charm!  It stayed in place all day.

Now, you may also want to don the 'do rag when you are at home doing housework, working in the yard or going for a neighborhood jog but may not have a cool bandana at home.

You can easily make one with an old t-shirt and a pair or scissors:

Here is the bandana I used, I folded it so it really is just a triangle:

Half a square, is all you need

I took an old t-shirt that had a cool design on it:

Eh, cool enough.

Then I placed the folded bandana on top of the design and did a rough cut through both layers of the t-shirt, following the edge of the bandana:

Step 1: Lay on top

Step 2: Cut

Well, guess what?  You're done!  It's that simple.  The best thing about this too, is that when you cut through both layers of the t-shirt, you have just made yourself two 'do rags!  A two-fer!  It doesn't get much better than that!

If you do not have a bandana, then just cut a large triangle.  Really, your cut lines don't even have to be that straight or perfect.

To put it on your head: Hold the long side ends so that the middle of the long side is against your forehead, having the design facing outwards.  Flip your head over so that your hair is hanging down and bring the ends that are in your hands to the nape of your neck.  All of your hair should be within the 'do rag at this point.  Then pull tight and make a tight knot at the nape of your neck.  Flip your head back over and pull the 'do rag back to about the start of your hairline.  Untuck your ears.

Ah, no more whispies!

Here is me with my two-fer 'do rags:

Two-fers, come and get your Two-fers!

Now, go out and rock that 'do rag!!

T-Shirt Skirts

I had leftover material from my 5K Shrug from a few weeks ago that I was going to throw away if I could not make something useful from it.  I figured it might make a cute skirt that I could use as a bathing suit cover-up or hanging around the house skirt.

Leftover 5K Shrug Material (T-shirt Bottom)

Here is what I had to work with.  It's not much, that's why I think it would be a good pool skirt.  I evened off the top raw edge with my rotary cutter.

Nice and Even

I always have elastic lengths in my sewing kit, so I measured some out and use the width of it to determine how thick my elastic casing needs to be.

Casing for the Elastic

I measured an inch and did not bother to iron the fold nor did I do a double-fold.  It's a hanging-around skirt, so I'm not too concerned with being exact and perfect.  I marked an area with purple chalk on the casing, to leave open so I can feed the elastic through.  You can't see the chalk markings, but they are between the cutting ruler and my second ruler on the right. 

Feeding the Elastic Through

I have a handy-dandy threader that I use in cases such as this, but if you do not have one, then a large safety pin works well too.

Once the elastic was in, I sewed the elastic ends to each other and then sewed the casing closed.  I made sure the elastic was flat and not twisted.  Then I fixed the runching so it was evenly distributed around the waist.  I sewed a tacking stitch or two on each side to anchor the elastic to the casing so it will not twist when I wash and wear it.

Very Plain

The skirt is very plain, but functional.  I would wear it with my tank top or shirt over the waistband.  Otherwise, it came out fine.  I'll have to bedazzle it or something (later, though)!

It's Comfy!

I have a second t-shirt that I wanted to chop up.  This one is an XL t-shirt that our bowling friend gave me.  He always gets promo stuff because he works for a liquor distributor company.  The t-shirt has the Malibu Black logo on it.  I love the original coconut-flavored Malibu rum, but I have not tried the Black yet.

This Will Make a Good Skirt

I cut the top part off, right below the armpits.  This t-shirt was really big, so I had to cut some width off too, or this would have looked like a sack on me.

Sewed Along the White Chalk Line

I did not want to have an elastic on this one though.  I decided to cut two strips from the leftover fabric and make this a side-tie skirt.

Side Ties

 I sewed these strips horizontally along the side of the top raw edge of the skirt. 

Sewed Only the One End Down

I tried it on and tied it.  Not too bad...I like it!

Side Tie Action

Here it is again:

Another Pool Skirt

This one is a bit more form-fitting, but I still like it.  I've lost a few pounds so I'm feeling pretty confident. 

Watch out pool...here I come!  (Saturday was really warm, like 80's, but today its back down to the high 50's...brrr!).  I will put these two away until the end of April.  It's never too early to prepare for warm weather!

Fix It: Silk Tissue Tee

I bought this fine, gauzy, long-sleeved tissue tee at Goodwill a month or two ago and put it aside for a rainy day.  Well, it wasn't raining this weekend, but I was at a loss for what to do.  I went through my To-Do pile and saw it and thought, "I forgot I bought this.  This should be an easy fix."

The reason why I put this aside was because the sleeves were too long.  I'm petite and the sleeves are always long on me.  The challenge with these were that the edge (cuff) of the them were slightly rolled, having no hem.  The sleeves matched the bottom edge, so I wanted to keep the roll.  It makes the tee have a feminine look.  

This tee reminded me of the Elizabethan period clothing, with the bell sleeves.  This does not have bell sleeves, but they have a nice drape that looks bell-like.

I surfed the web to see if someone else had already been down this road before and, unfortunately, since this was not a real-knitted item, my search came up short.  One clever way I saw to shorten sleeves was by unstitching the shoulder/arm seam, cutting at the shoulder and then reattach.  Very clever!  But, again, this would not work for me because this tee had raglan sleeves, not a sleeve that was simply sewed in.   This meant I had to come up with something on my own.  

The measurements above show that the sleeve has the same width from the elbow to the cuff, which will make hemming them easier.  My thought on altering the sleeves were to cut a portion from this section out and reattaching the cuff part to the arm.

To do this I figured out how much I needed to shorten them, less the seam allowance, then made pink chalk marks where I wanted to cut out the section.  Measure twice, cut once.  

The cut is shown above and I am praying that this idea does not ruin this tee.  I then took the cuff portion, turned it inside out and fitted it over the outside of the cut sleeve edge, matching raw cuts, right-sides together.  Pinned.

I got matching off-white thread, chose a ball-point needle, and sewed a seam.  I then pressed the seam to one side (sort of hard, because the material is silk and you cannot have the iron on high heat, so sometimes ironing silk is a waste of time).

Here it is, done.  The sleeves are the proper length now and the arm seam looks a bit funny, but not too bad.  I figured that it would match with the line seam that is around the empire waist.  The Elizabethan clothes I was talking about earlier, was where I got my inspiration.

Vince did not like it, but I don't think it looks too bad.  It's better than never wearing it, right?  It is very comfortable, so I will make good use of it.

Let's weight in: Was this a nice look, or did I ruin it?  (Use the comments to let me know your opinion).

P.S.
I wore my Tee to work the next day (Monday) and I got 3 compliments from people who do not read the blog and one from one that does and wanted to see the seam close-up.  The summary: Everyone liked it and thought that the seam looked like it belonged there.

Mission Accomplished!
 

5K Shrug

This weekend I ran my first official 5K in Fishhawk Ranch in Lithia, FL (where I live).  It was called the 15th Annual Fishhawk Ranch Road Race.  There were just under 800 total runners either participating in the 5K or the 10K. 

When we woke up on Saturday morning, it was overcast, in the high 60's and a bit drizzily.  Normally, that would've been considered a dull day in Florida, but for a day that you will be running, it was a perfect day.

On a day like Saturday, you arrive at the race with a few layers of clothing on, like wind pants and/or long sleeve shirt or a fleece, but then you get to running and you definitely don't want to be wearing all those layers.  It's a pain to have to keep running back to your car (esp if the parking is not near where the race starts) or tying a bulky shirt to your waist.

That's where I got the idea of a 5K shrug.  Basically it is a long sleeved t-shirt cut up so you are wearing only the sleeves, like a regular shrug that you wear with tanks or dresses.  This means a lot less bulk when you are running.  Here's what I did:

Take an old long sleeved t-shirt or athletic nylon/quick-dry/whatever shirt you have.  This one came from my I-want-to-donate-but-I-might-wear-it-one-day pile.  Then cut the bottom straight off just below the armpits.

Cut it up the middle.  (Or not, it won't really be a shrug, but it can be your 5K I Love the 80's Half Shirt)

I then matched up the two fronts, wrong-sides together.

I took chalk and drew where I wanted to cut so that it is rounded in the front.

I did the same for the neck area.

Here we are...a 5K shrug.  This t-shirt was a loose one, so you can choose to add a button or a pin to the front to keep it closed, in case it is windy or you might actually want to run with it on.

It's now tied around my waist with very little bulk.  Since it's all cut up, you may even be able to place the shrug somewhere in the race start area or by a bush or something until the race is done.  The likelihood of a cut up t-shirt still being on the ground when you get back is pretty good.  I would advise doing this to a shirt that you won't be sad if someone else thought your idea was fabulous and really did take it (junk pile/Goodwill/yard sale/gift from old boyfriend that you forgot to burn).

Back to the race.  This was a chip-timed race, which is nice, but they still took the guntime as your official time, so I don't really see the point of the chip.  I also timed it with my heart rate monitor watch.

I did a thorough job of stretching out before the race.  Vince and I had been running at least 3 times a week for months now, and we recently added a boot camp style training workout 2 times a week (so awesome, its right after work and work pays for it - how can you say no?).  The boot camp has improved my running measurably.  I'm also sticking to the My Fitness Pal calorie counter and a healthy diet.  That has to be helping too.

My public goal was to run the 5K in under 33 minutes.  That is about an 11 minute mile.  During our practice runs, I would be able to run 2 miles at a 10 min/mile pace, then the last mile it would drop down to 13 minutes.  It just took practice and pushing to get a more steady pace.

My personal, more private goal was to run the 5K in under 30 minutes (less than 10 min/mile pace).  I have not run that distance in that amount of time since running a weekly 5K running series in Mass in 2005.  That's a long time ago!!

I was able to run the 5K in 30:12 (30 minutes and 12 seconds)!  I'm so excited.  My watch time was actually 29:32, but I will just stick with the official guntime of 30:12.  So, I can positively state that I beat my goal.  Whoo-hoo!

A perk of running the race, you get free stuff at the end.  They had hot dogs, bagels, pumpernickel rolls, chic-fil-a breakfast biscuit sandwiches, Gatorade, water, energy bars, granola bars, water bottles, towels, Beef O'Brady's refillable sippy cups and best of all...booze.  They had hard iced tea (Mike's Lite) and Sam Adam's beer.

Even though I did not win a medal for my running efforts (I came in 202nd overall out of 519 runners, 65th out of 285 women and lastly, 9th out of 40 women in my age group of 35-40 yo), I had a great time!

Ruffle T-Shirt

I've had this t-shirt dress in my closet for at least 10 years.  It is from the Gap and I wore it as a bathing suit cover-up in my early 20's.  It's hard to imagine having an article of clothing for that long.  Anyway, I have not worn it aside from pjs for years.  It was time to deconstruct it or donate it to Goodwill.

What did I decide?  To Deconstruct...by making this a t-shirt with ruffles.  The long length allowed me to adorn it with itself.  Does that even make sense?  I don't know but here it goes:

I cut it about where the waistline would be and hemmed the now t-shirt top bottom edge with a ballpoint needle and a zig-zag stitch with a contrasting color: khaki green.

I then took the bottom skirt part and with my scissors, cut it into one very long continuous strip as if I were peeling an orange.  I did not concern myself that the strip was not perfectly cut.  There were some fat areas and skinny areas and parts where the scissor cuts were a bit jagged.  I figured it would add some character.

Once this was cut, I needed to make this my ruffle.  There are a few ways to make ruffles:

1. Put sewing machine on the longest stitch and sew.  Sometimes this is all you have to do and the machine gathers it for you.  If not, then try #2.
2. Do #1, but have a double stitch.  Meaning sew one line then go back and about a 1/4" apart, sew another line.  Hold one end of the two threads tight then with the other hand slide the fabric away from the holding hand.  This allows you to gather the ruffle and make it as full as you need it to be.
3. Lastly, sew a zig-zag stitch over another, separate strong thread, making a channel.

I chose to do the 3rd way.  Here is a link (Sew 4 Home) to a site that has pictures of what I was trying to explain.  They explain it way better than I can. :-)

The zig-zag method is the second easiest (the first being #1 where the machine just does it for you).  I took the fabric strip and a separate spool of button thread and set the machine to the widest zig-zag.  I placed the button thread down under the presser foot, on top of the material and held it in place and stitched the zig-zag down the entire length of the material.  You have to ensure that you do not actually stitch the button thread.  You are just stitching over it to trap it under the zig-zag.

When I stitched a few inches, I went back to the beginning and tied the green thread and the white button thread in a knot.  This will ensure that the button thread is not pulled out from the channel while zig-zaging and ruffling. I sewed the whole length of the strip.

Then I held the opposite end of the button thread, where I ended, and slid the material down near the knotted end.  This was a long process because my strip was ridiculously long.  I did not want to run out of ruffle so I just did the whole thing.

The button thread will need to stay in the channel to maintain the ruffle until it is sewed in place.  Sometimes it can be removed, but if it is sewed over during the attachment step, then it will have to stay.  I took this now ruffle and adjusted it so it was nice and even.  I took this over to the t-shirt and pinned it, button thread side down, along the neckline of the t-shirt. 

I started pinning it at the back of the neck and where the two sides met in the front where the v-neck was, I continued it down the front.  I sewed it in place and...

How do you like it?  It is not perfect, but it is darn cute!  I will love this shirt for 10 more years!  Well, that is highly unlikely that ruffles like this will be in style continuously for 10 more years, but they keep coming back, so why not later too?