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a Turtleneck and an Old Maternity Shirt

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Well, hello old maternity shirt.
I really liked you. But then I was pregnant with you in the summer and it did some bad, bad things to you. I was about to throw you away, but instead, I re-purposed you. Isn’t it nice to feel needed?
I cut off the top of my maternity shirt, but left a few inches longer to fold down and under to make a casing for the elastic. Don’t forget to leave a spot to thread your elastic through!
Next, I folded some tulle in half, and then followed the line of thread already on the shirt. And that was all I had to do for that. SO easy. In fact, I often find myself looking at DI for shirts that would look great as skirts for B.
Ah, the turtleneck. B really needed a black shirt, but the cute ones were over $10.00 and I just didn’t want to spend that much. So I bought one of the $3.50 ones at Walmart. But it was kind of ugly, to be honest. Hmmm, what could I do with it? I should mention that it is t-shirt material, or knit. I brainstormed, and here’s what I came up with.

Wanna know how? Let’s do it!
First, fold the top of the neck inside the shirt, leaving about a 1/2 inch. I think mine should have been a little shorter, so maybe even less than that, if you like! Good thing for you, you get to learn from my mistakes:).

Next, sew 1/4″ from and under the real seam of the neckline. If that didn’t make sense, sorry. Just look at the picture. Hopefully that will help!
Yea! No more looooong neck. Here’s what it should look like.

My turtleneck had a seam at the back of the neck part. So start at the seam, and carefully cut off the neck (carefully so that you don’t cut the shirt underneath it!). Cut it nicely, because you’ll be using the part you just cut off.
I cut the piece you just took off in half length-wise (you know, hot dog way), so I ended up with a strip about 1 1/2″ wide, and 10ish inches long. Sew a basting strip down the middle and pull on one of the strings to ruffle it.

Pin to shirt, and starting at the bottom of the ruffle, sew it on. You start at the bottom so you don’t have to try and stretch the neck to avoid sewing the shirt together where you don’t want to.

Here’s what it will look like. I did add two big black buttons at this point, but I didn’t take a picture.

On to the ruffley wrists! My shirt was double layered on the cuff here. I stuck my picker in there and ripped a straight line.

Then continued on with my scissors around the whole thing–don’t worry about the seam if there is one. Just cut to the seam.
It will look like this. **Here’s another thing I think I would do differently if I were you:). I would cut the top layer a little shorter than the first so that you have a ruffled layer. Just cut curved up to the seam when you get there. Or just do it like I did. It’s still cute.

I set my stitches like this. I don’t have a fancy sewing machine at all. I just needed a zig-zag stitch, kind of wide, but close together.

Here’s the fun part! Take one of those layers you just cut, and pull tightly with your fingers. Don’t pull back while you are sewing–still let your sewing machine do the work. But keep a good stretch going between your two fingers as you stretch the knit and let the machine do the moving.
So once you go around the whole edge, you’ll have a fun ruffle.
Repeat with other layer.

And once you do both layers, it will look like this:
Much cuter, don’t you think?

And you are done!


Snag the nearest baby (hopefully one that’s yours or one you at least know!), and let them play in their new outfit!
*I learned how to make my Babylegs B is wearing HERE.
*I am re-learning how to sew by following my friend Sabra’s blog How to Sew a Straight Line. It’s got some great stuff there.
*I know I saw someone do a ruffle on the front of their child’s shirt similar to this, somewhere online. I’m sorry, I don’t know where I saw it now. But thank you for your inspiration, whoever you are!!!

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