Fix It - Ribfest Tank

This weekend in St Pete at Vinoy Park was Ribfest.  I love Ribfest; so much good food.  I recently have been trying a gluten-free diet (no wheat, so like anything made with flour is out) and cutting out carbonated drinks (like beer and soda).  I knew I could not control how the ribmasters make up their BBQ sauce (yes, they may add flour or modified food starch to thicken or use soy sauce which has flour), so I said that I was forgoing the gluten-free and carbonation-free diet for one day. 

That being said, I need a shirt that was not too tight.  My belly gets really bloated when I eat wheat and carbonated drinks, so I wanted to be worry-free on how my belly was looking during Ribfest.

I recently went around to yard sales on a past weekend, and bought this really cute halter top for 50 cents.

Holy Polka Dot, Batman!

Yeah, it's polka dotted but I really liked it.  I liked the flow and the twirly-wrapped straps.  The only thing is that I did not really like that it was a halter top.  I'm constantly picking up the back to make sure it's covering my bra and I have to wear a strapless bra.  Halters are supposed to be cute and fun, why so much hassle to wear one?  

Since the twirly-wrapped straps were really long, I decided to make regular straps out of them and use the extra length to make loops in the back to hold up the back from sagging.

Twirly Loops, Coming  Right Up!

Next, I took the small length I just cut and attached them to the back of the shirt.

Easy-Peasy

Then I threaded the twirly-wrapped straps through the new loops and had Vince make a square knot in the back middle.

Really, That Simple!

Here is a close-up of the loops and knot:

No More Saggy Back

I will model my new shirt:

Project Runway, Here I Come!

Remember I fixed up a few blazers?  Well, I paired my new shirt with one of them to attend Ribfest (It got a bit chilly in the evening):

And Now the Red Carpet...

Let's say I won't be quitting my day job to model. :-)

We enjoyed ourselves so much at Ribfest.  It was a perfect day and the ribs and pulled pork were delicious!  We met some friends there.  Here is a pic of their daughter and I reading a Dora book:

So Cute!

Now for Rib Pictures:

Ravaging a Rib

A few more:

Yum, So Worth It!

The daughter let me borrow her bib so I could finish up without a mess:

I'm Such a Princess When I Eat!

All in all, we had a good time.  Can't wait until Ribfest 2012! 

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?