A shirt repurposed and a busy weekend

We were quite busy this past weekend.  I was at the hospital, Corey had a basketball tournament and a birthday party to attend, Molly had a Harry Potter slumber party to attend and a college basketball game with friends.  She did all this after ending up in a sling thanks to a shoulder injury during gymnastics Thursday night...

getting the news that nothing is broken

Greg of course was responsible for carting the two of them around to all these events while I worked. 
Corey's team won one and lost one, Molly had a blast and the Bowdoin girls basketball team did great!
So as you can imagine last evening after getting home none of us had much energy to do anything.  Greg and the Corey watched some All-Star NBA stuff (very special treat) and Molly and I got to work with the sewing machine (I had to do something useful).  Greg recently lost a few of his "good shirts" for the office to an ink pen in the wash.  I've had a hard time just getting rid of them, I knew there could be some purpose eventually.

 I've seen a few different recycled men's dress shirts on the web including this one over at mesewcrazy
 which was too cute to pass up.  so after a brief planning session with Molly we got to work.  I haven't bothered with a tutorial here as there are many already on the web and I can't take credit.  I've shown what I did to make it my own. First I started measuring miss Molly but quickly decided that using a shirt that fits her well as a guide would be quicker.

getting the right fit

  I found some sweet fabric in one of the "bins" and used that to make a bit of bias tape for the edging...not sure if this is the "technical" way to go about this, but if you haven't figured this out already I tend to "wing it" a lot (it usually works).  I love the two fabrics together.

homemade bias edging

  Next I did two rows of a basting stitch to gather the bottom of the shirt to match with the top which was much more narrow. 

a simple basting

I double checked with Molly on 3/4 length sleeves and then held them up to her one good arm for and exact length.  I laugh at the word exact here as I'm pretty sure one arm ended up longer than the other, but wow the end result was cute!  I'll post some pictures of her wearing it when she is out of her sling, but until then here is what we ended up with.

 I am quite happy with this results and am for sure in a sewing mood today.  Hopefully I'll have another fun project to post tomorrow.  In the meantime here is another little quicky knit I came up with on Saturday evening.  I'll be writing up the pattern soon and posting it on Ravelry in the next few days.

gotta keep the ears warm here in Maine, the snow keeps coming and the winter drags on...