Wow,

What a Wonderful and busy Halloween season.  My family and I had tons of fun this year.  We hope that you also had a wonderful season!  We had a great time decorating and trying new things this year.  We loved the family activities that helped to decorate for Halloween.

But Halloween is over and the decorations are being but away.  So it is time to get ready for the next season.  No, it is not Thanksgiving yet!  It is the great season of FOOTBALL.  Football is what my family does from now until we set up for Christmas.  Now, I am not the hugest football fan, however my family is full of huge fans.  I love to support what they love.   My idea of watching football, involves watching the first 5 minutes of the game, then leaving the room to go work on any craft, then I return at the end to see who won.  I leave the family to enjoy the sport.  I do however love watching a football game in person.    I enjoy the game more.  For family nights this year we are going to try and attend some games from the local high school or even some University games.

To support Cameron’s love of football, he wanted a new Broncos shirt.  But he wanted my old Bronco shirt that I made for me years ago, but worn seldom.  The shirt was in great condition, so again I am repurposing one of my shirts into a shift for one of my children.  You will notice that even with a button up shirt, it is the same guidelines to repurpose the shirt into a smaller size as with the other shirts that I have done.

This shirt was made to fit me when I was almost at my largest size.  You can see that it is very huge on my little boy.  This shirt was huge on me when I tried it on last week, but I still would not wear it much, so it is now Cameron’s.

Here is the shirt in the pieces that I cut from my original shirt.  First I turned the shirt inside out and laid it flat.  Then I measured Cameron and decided how long I needed the final shirt to be, so it would not be too long for him.  I added 1.5 inches to how long I wanted the shirt.  That was to make sure I had enough fabric for the folded hem of the shift.   When cutting the bottom of the shirt I followed the same pattern of the original’s shirts hem.  So the end product looked more like a dress shirt with longer tails to tuck in.

I then took one of his shirts that currently fit, and used it as a guideline for how wide to make the shirt.  I also used his shirt to help make the indentations for the sleeves.  His shirt was also uses to as a pattern for the length and width of the sleeves.   When using his same shirt as a pattern for the sleeves and the indentation for the sleeves on the chest, will help to ensure that everything will fit correctly when put back together.

When sewing the shirt back together, I sewed the sides of the shirt first then the sleeves.  I then attached the sleeves to the shirt like I would any shirt.  I like to make sure that the seams match on the sleeves and the sides of the shirt.   Next I had Cameron try on the shirt and made sure that I sill liked where the bottom of the shirt was going to be.  I then did a folded hem on the shirt.  Because Cameron is very hard on his clothing, I made sure I double stitched every seam, to help hold the shirt together.

The final product looks great on Cameron, and fits him perfectly.  He can jump up and down and cheer for his team without the shirt being too large, Or to small.   This entire alteration took 30 minutes for me from start to finish.  Allow yourself 45 minutes to 60 minutes.  Extra time would be good for measuring.

I love repurposing clothing to get more use out of what is still good.  Let me know if you have any questions or any ideas.  Thank you for reading.

Brenda.

Tags: crafts, kid clothes, recycle, repurposing