Prepaid Project #2 ~ Ruffled Flower Shirt

Today I completed my second prepaid project ~ a ruffled flower shirt. I have had this shirt for a few years. I wore it quite a bit when I first got it but sometime during that first Summer I threw it in the wash and it came out with a huge grease stain on the shoulder. Yuck. After digging all of the laundry out of the washer I found the culprit laying in the bottom of the washer barrel - a tube of chap stick. This happens more frequently than I care to admit. Oh how I loathe chap stick in my washer!!! I'm sure there is some way to get that stain out but I didn't know it at the time so my wear-all-the-time shirt sadly got thrown into my old bedtime shirt pile in the closet. However, I like my sleeping shirts to be big and loose and this shirt is neither so it never got worn after that.

I rediscovered this shirt a few days ago and I still love the color of it (especially since it matches my pink tennis shoes so well) so I decided to give it a makeover. Why not? The worst that could happen is that I donate it to DI. Maybe I'll even love it!

I started my shirt makeover by cutting a few 1 1/4 inch wide lengths of white knit fabric.

I sewed a gathering stitch down the middle of each of them and then pulled the bobbin thread to gather them pretty tight into ruffles. Then I pinned them into flower-shaped circles, folding under the edges. What was great about doing it this way was that I could arrange them on the shirt, try it on, and then if I didn't like it I could un-pin it and re-arrange it. I tried it pinning the ruffles a few different ways... I ended up liking the arrangement best with a huge mum-like flower up on my shoulder and two smaller flowers under that one. After I wash it (without a tube of chap stick) the ruffles will stand up and I'll be able to see the pink of the shirt peeking through the flowers so it won't be just a mass of white on the shoulder of the shirt. I love knit fabrics, especially since they don't have to have a seam (as long as you don't mind it rolling). I plan to do a bunch of prepaid projects with my stash of knits.

This shirt is a bit whimsical ~ just the way I like things. I know the style is trendy but at least I will get to wear it for a while, especially since we're having unseasonably warm weather for Fall right now.

I linked this project here: