The Twelve Days of Ellee Third Day: Gaping Green Shirt

The 12 Days of Ellee

On the Third Day of Christmas

my mother made for me...

One Gaping Green Shirt

A Fitted Chevron Dress

and a Turquoise Dress fitted to me.

Poor, skinny, little Ellee!  Everything we find for her is too big!  She just loved this green shirt she found, but, once again, she could almost fit two of her in it.  So, it was time for momma to get to work!

 The first thing we did was flip the shirt inside out and pinned it evenly on both sides where we wanted to take it in.  We also pinned the sleeves, following along where the existing seam was.  This shirt was a little tricky because the shoulder seam was not a straight seam on the top of the shoulder, like usual.  It went at an angle in the back.  It caused me issues later, but I'll get to that.  At this point, I pinned anyway.

Once she removed the shirt, I turned my pins sideways, forming my seam line.  Then, I sewed straight seams on both sides, removing pins as I sewed.  Don't sew over the pins.  It never works out in your favor:)

This is where I turned the pins and sewed a straight seam.  Sort of

This is where I did a straight seam on the sleeve.

This is where my dilemma started.  If I stayed with the shoulder seam,
there would have been no ruffled sleeve left.

This is where my dilemma started.  If I stayed with the shoulder seam,
there would have been no ruffled sleeve left.

When I got to the sleeves, I noticed my dilemma.  The sleeve didn't lay flat and it I sewed across following the existing seam, there was be no more sleeve left to create the ruffle effect that Ellee liked.  Long story short, I just laid the sleeve flat where the edges came together and, instead of following the existing seam, I kept the same straight line, only taking out a few inches from the sleeve.

With that problem solved, I was able to finish up the shirt by clipping the excess fabric from the sleeves and the sides.  My fabric was knit, so it will not fray, so I didn't put any finishing stitches on the seams.  The ruffled sleeve also had been finished off with a serger and, since I met my seams when sewing, there was no need to serge the edges again.