I know, I’ve got shrugs on the brain lately! I only just posted these shrugs made from a free pattern and now I’m refashioning a tee into a shrug! And I may have asked Mummy Ask to knit me a cropped cardigan…. Well, you can’t have too many shrugs can you?
Anyway, I bought this striped tee in the op shop without trying it on. It fits but the high neckline is just strangling! I held onto it because nice red and white striped stretch fabric seems hard to find. While trying to dig out some longer sleeve winter tops, I saw this tee and thought – shrug! It was a pretty easy refashion, so let’s get to it!
You’ll need a tee that actually fits well or fits well in the arms but is tight in the body. Too big won’t do at all.
I tried the tee on and used a safety pin to mark the under bust where I wanted my shrug to hit. While I had it on, I thought about where I wanted the v neck to hit at the shoulder and put a pin there too.
I took the tee off and folded carefully to find centre front and marked it with chalk (or disappearing sewing marker or whatever). I also marked straight across the tee at the under bust point I marked.I used a ruler to draw in the v neckline on one side, in a straight line between my shoulder pin to where the under bust & centre line meet.
I flipped over the tee and marked in new back neckline that met up with the shoulder marker. I didn’t want any of the old neck band/hem, so I went just under it. Then I tried it back on to see that everything was sitting in the right places.
Time to cut! I cut away the bottom section, using my marked line as a guide (plus stripes make this easy, well if they matched it would have!). Then I cut out the front v neck on one side and flipped it over as a cutting guide for the other side. I then repeated for the back neck. That’s all the cutting!
At this point you have quite a few bits left that you could use to finish the neckline and create the ties but I wanted to switch it up a bit and use fold over elastic. For the neckline, I folded the elastic over the raw edge and zig zagged it closed, making sure I caught the raw edge. I put slight tension on the elastic as I went, not enough to gather but enough to snug it to the body.
One more step, yay! To finish the bottom edge and provide ties to do up the shrug, I needed to sew the fold over elastic on flat. I don’t have a pic of the doing but you can see what I mean! I left a 10 inch tail and then laid the elastic so it overlapped the raw edge and top stitched it down with a zip zag. I add a wee be of tension but not much. I left 10 inches at the other end and then cut off the elastic. And voila!
I think this is a perfect, quick and easy refashion! I totally makes good of a top you love but that is a touch on the small side and it’s easy enough for a beginner (but if you haven’t worked with fold over elastic before, practice!). I’d love to see your version, so make sure you send a pic!
I think this is a perfect, quick and easy refashion! I totally makes good of a top you love but that is a touch on the small side and it’s easy enough for a beginner (but if you haven’t worked with fold over elastic before, practice!). I’d love to see your version, so make sure you send a pic!
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