Heart Corsage Shirt - Tshirt refashion tutorial!

Who doesn't have a few boring t-shirts laying around? Here's a really easy and fun way to breathe some new life into your basics.

What you need:

- plain fitted t-shirt (this works best on one with a scoop or v-neckline)

- jersey/knit/tshirt scraps in desired colors (ones that will complement the t-shirt. I used 3 different colors)

Here's the t-shirt I started with in white (mine is blue):

Step 1: Cut heart shapes out of the knit scraps. If you don't know how, here's the short cut for cutting a heart (in the middle image, the fold is on the right edge):

I think I used about 20 hearts, but it really depends on how big you want your corsage to be and the size of your t-shirt. Also, I originally didn't cut enough and had to go back to make more, so don't worry too much about the exact number. You can always add or subtract some.

Step 2: Lay the hearts out along the neckline or wherever you want them on the shirt, overlapping and imperfect. You have two choices here: you can pin them to the shirt, which will take a lot of pins but ensure you get the exact design you want, or you can get an idea of what you want and then free hand it (which is what I did). Sorry, no picture of this one. Look at the completed picture for guidance.

Step 4: Staring at the shoulder, stitch the hearts down. Make sure you fold and twist them a little as you go to give them some structure and dimension. Also: I used white thread, and didn't want to sew over the navy and grey hearts I had with the white thread. So, I kept my white hearts mainly on top and placed my colored ones so that sewing on the white hearts would take them down as well.

Step 5: Sewing the hearts down can be a little tiring, so take a break and chat with a friend. The furrier the better.

Step 6: Finish tacking down your hearts. Then, try the shirt on - you'll probably realize that some spots look a little bare or that you didn't go up or down far enough along the neckline. Easy to fix - stick a few more hearts on where needed.

And here you go! The fun thing about this is you can do as much or as little as you want, in whatever color combinations you want.



Here's a better picture of the detail (the only full length one I had obviously didn't turn out so well!)



Don't forget to enter in my giveaway for a cute summer dress - there aren't many entries so far so the odds are looking good!

Also, the first summer of skirts tutorial is coming tomorrow! I also have a few more in progress, so keep checking back.