Ruffle Refashion

Remember the ruffely shirt I wore here?

I promised you the tutorial, and here it is!  I actually got this idea from Ashlee.  She made her awesome pirate shirt that got the wheels in my head turning.  At our Grandpa’s funeral, one of her little ladies was wearing a shirt with a cute applique on it.  Ashlee said she put the applique on the shirt to cover a stain.  Hmmm…

I have a white ruffle shirt with a pizza stain on it.  Hmmm…

“Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?”

“Uh, I think so, Brain, but me and Pippi Longstocking--I mean, what would our children look like?!”

Exactly what I was thinking!  That, and I could add more ruffles to my shirt to cover my stain.  See?  Ashlee does it to cover her kids’ stains.  I do it to cover my own.  White shirts and I don’t get along.  If you ever see me eyeballing a white shirt at the store, please stop me.  Just say, “Natalie, it isn’t worth it.  Put the shirt down and choose something that is more stain concealing…”  Mkay?!  Thanks!

So, on to the ruffle shirt--

You can do this refashion with any shirt, it doesn’t have to be one that already had ruffles on it.  Here’s my shirt.  I won’t point out the stain, but trust me, it’s there.

 

My MIL, whom we lovingly refer to as “The Queen,”  gave me this roll of knit ribbing a while ago.  I have found so many fun things to do with this bad boy!  :)

I cut a few strips of the ribbing to the size I wanted them.  If you don’t have the ribbing, you could do this with 1” strips of knit fabric.  You could even chop up an old tee shirt and do the same thing.  It doesn’t matter; as long as it is knit.

Sew a basting stitch down each strip.  (A basting stitch is a straight stitch with a longer stitch length.)

Pull on one of the threads to gather the fabric.

Pin the ruffles onto the shirt where you want them and sew them into place with a straight stitch.  Once the ruffles are on, remove your basting threads.

I think it’s easier to pull out the basting stitch when you use a different color of thread.  You can’t really tell from the picture, but these threads are light blue.  They were super easy to find against the white fabric of the tee shirt.

Here they are all sewn on.  Can’t see that stain now, can ya?!

…and this is what it looked like after I washed it.  I was worried about the spacing between the ruffles, but once I saw how it washed up, I wasn’t.  I love how it turned out.

It’s just so feminine and fun.  I’ll definitely do this to a shirt again.  It’s a great way to change things up.