Bloomin' a peplum: Converting a men's shirt into a peplume

Hi guys! I'm really excited to share my first refashion. I've always had issues finding clothes that fit my body type and I've found a way around it! Hope you guys enjoy it. I know I did :) I was up sewing until 1 am! Just like the good old days :)

Converting a men's dress shirt into a peplume

After!

Before...

Things to consider...

• Price- I got my men's shirt at Salvation Army's 50% off sale that they have every week. That means I paid around $2.50 for my materials. I would recommend buying refashioning materials from thrift sales, especially if you're new to sewing, instead of using clothes from your closet. 
• Material- I chose a shirt with a heavy knit. This is a different material than what normal dress shirts are made from. If I had to give this shirt a personality, I would call it "brawny". The main reason for a heavy knit so that you can't see your mistakes are easily. When you use a seam ripper numerous times over an area, it leaves small holes from where your needle punctured the material. 
• Size- Yes, larger is better. It gives your more room to manipulate the material. More importantly, the it has to be able to fit your curves. I've always had issues finding shirts that fit my bust, and this shirt was the perfect size. That also meant that I had less room to work with, so choose accordingly

I don't have pictures of every step I did because I made a couple mistakes along the way and got too involved to stop and take a picture. I'll try to summarize as best as I can.

• I removed the breast pocket and sleeves from the shirt first. 

Shot of the new arm hole

It took me longer than expected to take these apart because I was being
careful not to rip the material

• Adjust the arm hole. The men's shirt will have a gaping hole. This means putting on the shirt, keeping buttons from gaping, and pinching the arm holes to figure out how much to take in.
• I sewed 2 darts in the front of the shirt to help take in excess material around my waist. I started the darts a little below my bust. I also took in 1/2 inch from the sides. I also sewed 2 darts in the back

After adding the front darts and taking  it
in on the sides

Not a boob shot, just a picture of a dart up close. Look
closely at the grain of the shirt

• By now, the bodice of the shirt should fit. With chalk, mark where you want to the peplume to start. Try to draw a straight line across, and use that as your cutting diagram.
• Note: With a men's shirt, you'll want to pay attention to where the buttons fall. I chose to cut after the 4th button.
• You can then do the shoulders. I folded the material where I wanted it to fall, and hemmed the insides. That sounds a lot simpler that it is. This take a lot of practice.
• On the bottom part, I undid any threads that are associated with the darts or taking it in on the sides so that I had more material to create a ruffle
• I used this great tutorial to create and attach my ruffle. 
• When attaching the ruffle, make sure the button/button holes match up with each other, AND the button on the top as well.

Use lots of pins to keep the buttons/button holes aligned

• Once attached, time to hem the bottom. I measured the distance from the shortest part of the shirt to the attached waist, and kept that length for the entire bottom. YOU'RE DONE! yayyyy!!!!

Check it out!

I had some issues with the sewing machine around the
sleeves but I'll fix that later

I'll admit, it's a little loose in the back, but I'm fine with that

This shirt is totally adorbs. I'm happy with the result!

I hope you guys enjoyed my tutorial! I can't wait to show you more projects! 

I'm no longer a little bit country

The time has finally come! My Brother XL-2600i sewing machine finally came! I bailed on my friday night plans so that I could wait for the UPS guy to deliver my machine (He didn't come until 7pm!). I knew I wouldn't enjoy the night knowing that my machine was sitting outside of my door where anybody could take it. But here it is, and boy am I glad that decided to upgrade.

Note: Amazon didn't send it inside another box. They shipped it using the retail box  : /  Talk about lack of privacy

It only took me one try to wind a bobbin, thread the machine and try sewing. Since I was testing quilting thread, I had to experiment with the tension but that was so much easier than on my previous machine. Note to self, when using thick/courser thread, use higher tension!

Now to my project: Converting bootcut jeans to skinny jeans. I know the skinny jean fad has been around for more than 4 years, and I'm extremely behind the curve with this. Two months ago, most of the jeans in my closet were bootcut jeans until I started looking into straight jeans. For those who don't know, I have enormous calves and they don't go well with skinnies. One time I even ripped a pair of skinnies trying to fit my calves into them :( With that said, I knew that I had plenty of jeans that are waiting for conversion.

I think I'll try to summarize existing tutorials out there before I start my project. That way everyone knows why I did it. 

 Ok, on jeans, there are 2 different stitches on the side of the jeans. On the outside, there's a basic stitch that looks like 2 materials joining when looking on the outside. The on the inside, along the thigh, I'll call it a double stitch, where they did a basic stitch and reinforced it by ironing (or pressing) the seam and stitching it again. 

For starters, taking in the material. I saw one video only taking in material on the outside of the jeans. That seems reasonable because of the stitching (I'll get into that later). However, I saw in another tutorial that if you only take in the outer, that shifts the grain of the jean and you'll actually see the twisting of the material along the front of your calves. 

One of the blogs that I follow also say to start taking in material starting at the crotch. You can see her video here. That is difficult for me since my jeans are snug from the crotch to the thigh. I decided to take in the material starting at, or a little below the knee. I laid a pair of straights that I liked on top of the bootlegs and started pinning.

I'm using a quilting thread, so that it's a bit stronger. Start sewing down towards the bottom of the pants, and make sure you keep the pins in place. You probably want to use a basting stitch (a wide length stitch that isn't reinforced by reverse stitches) in case you think you might make a mistake. I didn't do that....but I don't mind how it turned out.

Looks pretty good eh? Well, take a closer look

The inside double stitch disappears.  I've thought of this multiple times and I can't think of an easy way to keep the double stitching along the side 

The outside of the jeans looks great though! 

 I hope you guys enjoyed this post! I've started working on another project, so stay tuned!