Two shirts become one

I make a mess when I cook

I want to tell you I am done with my Celtic Solstice quilt but life has me juggling. Snow, vehicle issues, snow, chaos. Lots and lots of chaos. With a house full of kids, you can't avoid chaos. Then there are the chevrons .... oh Lord help me with the chevrons. I have most of them done but not all. I have also assembled a couple dozen of the blocks that don't require evil chevrons, LOL. And I have baked banana bread. My family loves the stuff!

My daughters gentleman caller asked if I could fix a shirt for him. I said sure. Next time I will ask more questions. Oh my goodness, he doesn't really want it mended, he wants it re-created. He wants to take one of his long sleeved paintball shirts and have the under armor portion replaced with an event t-shirt. It doesn't sound hard. or does it? Turns out the shirts are 2 different sizes - the under armor is the super snug stuff, the t-shirt is a regular relaxed fit. Where is my magic wand? Hhhmmm .....

Morph two shirts into one ... hmmm

I thought about it for several hours. How to cut away a knit fabric and replace it with another knit fabric without it getting lopsided and wonky. Knits are not my strong suit. Do I put the t-shirt on the outside or the inside? I need to get the collar and sleeves lined up cohesively so the shirt will hang properly.

Basted and pinned

I decided to go t-shirt in, baste and pin it to death, snip the under armor, then fold it under and top stitch down. Too complicated? Yeah, that's what I thought, LOL. But it worked. I did not have to completely deconstruct either shirt. The camo is a top layer for the t-shirt. And slowly the event T will be revealed in a Hulk tear away maneuver. OK I snipped it quietly in my sewing corner but the Hulk was with me in spirit.

Slowly but surely, I kept basting for stability, snipping the under armor so I could top stitch the camo to the t-shirt. I am really happy with how it looks so far. Tomorrow is the really scary part - I have to attach the lower part of the under armor sleeve to the t-shirt sleeve. One is small, one is large. I need to integrate them without stretching and making the shirt wonky.

Can shirts be wonky or just quilts?

I miss straight seams.

I knew how things would go from the beginning. Stitch, rip seams, stitch again.  Snip and pray. He wants his call sign embroidered on the tshirt and thankfully my Janome Horizon does that! Yeah! But on a t-shirt? I need stabilizer. And practice.

I found some scrap stretchy material and played with stabilizers. Programmed my machine and practice stitched. Again. And again. I finally decided on a scrap of stiff fabric from a previous project. I love scraps.

Tada! I'm done. Hopefully everything will hold during one of their paintball weekends. I like how it looks. I think the tan t-shirt goes great with the camo.

What are you working on?