IRON CRAFT 1: T Shirt Makeover

Last week, in honor of 250 followers (and an awesome beach trip), we Wayward Girls gave one another an IRON CRAFT challenge: each of us brought one (or two) "secret" ingredients for a craft. Many ambitious plans later, we're (sort of) ready to start showing how we answered the challenge.

We could use multiple crafts to use up all the secret items, but each craft had to use at least two of the secret ingredients. My craft today does just that (with more IRON CRAFTS to follow). (When they're done.) (I LOVE PARENTHESES!)

Materials (secret ingredients in bold):

• Large white T shirt
• Offwhite & gold silk flowers
• Sewing supplies: thread, needle, straight pins, sewing machine & scissors (and rotary cutter, optional)

First, I cut off the ribbed crew collar at the top of the shirt. Then I cut off the bottom hem of the shirt below the hem stitching, like this:

(Save this piece for another job!)

I cut off the hem stitching, then cut off another strip of fabric about 1 inch wide. I pinned the strip about half an inch below the collar on the outside of the shirt. I wanted to sew it down, but Brooke's sewing machine was giving us fits at the beach house and I re-broke Mom's 30-year-old sewing machine, which just got serviced for the first time a couple months ago (for this exact reason!). So I really just pinned it in place to show you how the finished product will look:

And here's a faster explanation than I can give:

I also gathered (well, added folds which I guess are more like pleats) one side of the shirt, but I'm not sure if I'll keep this in, since the shirt seems a little short already:

And of course, the decorative details:

I made the white flower from the bottom hem-edge of the shirt, similar to the ribbon flowers from Mother's Day. It was already nicely creased, so I kept that and basted along the folded edge:

Once I reached the end of the strip (took forever!) I pulled the thread tight to scrunch up the fabric. It curls naturally from this:

Unlike the little ribbon flowers, though, this was going to need a bit more stabilizing to stay together as a big flower. I started by sewing together the center, then as I wound each new layer around the center, I sewed that layer to the last layer:

And voila:

And the (almost) finished product (with a stripey placemat so you can see the collar):

What would you do with a T shirt and silk flowers?