Rockin' the t-shirt make over

Just the other day I was sewing in plain red.  Well today I came over all anti-plain.  A plain cream long sleeved t-shirt was one item I recently pulled out of the little kids clothing I have had in storage.  It's so totally boring, don't you agree?  It needs some jazz, it needs some pizazz.

It has now undergone quite the makeover with a few bits of fabric from the deep dark depths of my fabric stash.

First it got a panel of colourful electric guitar knit fabric splashed across the front.  I used double sided interfacing to stick it to the shirt, and then did a quick row of stitching around the perimeter just to make sure it stays put through wearing and washing.

Next I wanted to put red cuffs on the sleeves.  I was simply going to sandwich the ends of the sleeves between a folded piece of rib knit fabric but I very quickly realised I was never going to get a tiny sleeve opening under my sewing machine needle - mission impossible!  So, not to be beaten, I unpicked the sleeve ends to the point where I could just lay the sleeve fabric flat, and then sandwiched it between the rib fabric.

I sewed it on to the sleeve with a double row of stitching, then re-stitched the sleeve closed again. I trimmed the seam allowance back and did a zig-zag stitch over the raw edges (both sides separately) and then opened up the seam and did a little horizontal stitch across the sleeve end to keep the inside of the sleeve openings nice and neat and comfy.

In a perfect world I would have sewed the sleeve openings just a little bit tighter, but I'm very happy with the results!

Sorry for the overload of pictures of the babe lately, I am exploiting having use of an unwitting model.

Rock out baby!

Possibly that brings to a close my contribution to the Kids Clothes Week Challenge, I've done way more than my one hour a day requirement and three new garments is pretty good going for one week around at my place.  My house is a mess, the meal planning has collapsed, the floors need a vacuum, laundry needs doing, things just generally need cleaning and its time to reduce down the ever growing pile of sewing paraphernalia on the dining table.  Unless I get a little delivery of hippopotamus fabric tomorrow I think I'm pretty much done.

And, as if this post wasn't long enough already, I've linked up today over at Our Creative Spaces.