A DIY Revamped Yellow Shirt (feat some dying)

Y'all this is gonna be a long one. I'm going to do my best to condense it as much as possible, but be warned you may be reading for a loooong time now.

Right, ok, you're still with me. Let's get on with it shall we?

A (long) while back I was wondering aimlessly through a thrift store... no wait, hang on, the story starts before that. An even longer while back I bought a skirt with bees on it. Now we're back on track. I'd been looking for a bright yellow shirt to go with this bee patterned skirt as I don't own anything in any shade of yellow. So one day as I was wondering aimlessly through a thrift store I stumbled on a rather hideous, but yellow, blouse. It was half off putting the thing at $1.50. I had nothing to loose here. Thusly, I bought it with the intention of altering it into a somewhat more attractive structure.

That apparition in the window is basically my before picture.

Quick tip: if you want to know what your outfit looks like but don't have a mirror nearby (or are simply too lazy to cross the hall), back light yourself in a window. The reflection isn't crystal clear but it gives you a foggy idea of what you probably look like. [WARNING - this is best done in a window that does not directly face anything outside. Remember it's a window we're talking about here]

1. OG sketches.jpg — front/back

Now that that's out of the way... I started with a few design sketches (which as you will see meant literally nothing and were pretty much an entire waste of my time).
This was basically what I was aiming towards (more or less).

That morphed into these two sketches, which I put to a poll on Instagram and came back with some kind of results (I don't really remember that was a long time ago). Point being I at least had three tenths of a partial plan ready to enact.

I intended these sketches to be roughly the skill level of a very artistic five year old. I'm pretty sure my post did say something about the finished product looking nothing like either of them (it turned out to be an accurate prediction).

Once I'd settled on a design, I was ready to dye the fabric (I'm sure it could have been done in either order really, but for some reason this way made sense to me. That and throwing together a quick sketch late at night is easier than starting an entire dying process).

Right, I did forget to mention that this shirt was waaaay to light to match the yellow of the bees on the skirt. I thought it was about the right shade in the store, however, next to the skirt it was not even close. Hence the need to dye.

Being the cheapskate that I am, I really didn't want to buy a package of dye from the store (and I wanted to start work immediately and shipping would have taken a few days, and going to the store was out of the question because I just didn't want to). As a result I decided to use turmeric to get the golden yellow color I was hoping to achieve.

I did worry the buttons would melt off while the shirt was being dyed so I ripped them off (with the intention of putting them back on I think… I can't say I remember what my thinking was back then).

To begin, I looked up how to use turmeric to dye fabric. I came across a great article read it and then was never able to find it again when I was actually ready to dye so I basically just went from memory.

1. boil.jpg — First, the fabric gets boiled in a vinegar water concoction for an hour or so maybe.

It looks yummy enough right?

Inked2. Update resume while the thing poisonously boils away on the stove_LI.jpg — While that's boiling poisonously away on the stove you can work on other project. I chose to update my resume (which also turned out to be a waste of time as I ended up scrapping that design and completely redoing it about a week later).

Sorry for the redacted information, but I can’t have you knowing everything about me.

Additionally, you could use this time to read a book. I didn't get to far in my resume updating anyway though, because my landlord's kids came over and I volunteered my laptop to them so they could watch movies while the adults worked on the house.

Once the shirt has boiled for the amount of time that it is supposed to have boiled for, the correct amount of turmeric is added to the right amount of water and that has to be brought to a boil (technically this could be done while the other pot is boiling I guess. If you want to be efficient. I'm never efficient so I don't really know how that would all work).

5. Mixed.jpg — Once that seems boily enough to suit you, dump it into the first pot that has the shirt in it. Making sure that the vinegar water mixture was dumped out and it's just the shirt left in there. Maybe you rinse out the shirt too. That sounds right. Dump the water/vinegar, rinse the shirt, put back in the pot, douse in the turmeric tea.

I do think the liquid is technically supposed to cover the fabric but it floats so I just kept dunking it back in. Then I think the pot gets covered and boiled for some more time and then...

I guess should look something like this.

A wrinkled mess.

But the correct shade of yellow nonetheless. I then hung it up to dry until it was completely dried.

3. pinned.jpg — Then I tried the whole thing on a fiddled around with how I wanted it to look. Even at this point I strayed far far from those first sketches.

This was the look I wanted (then), I pinned it up, took it off, and shoved it in my sewing bag to work on the next day…

I didn't touch that shirt for nearly three months.

Three whole months!!!

I didn't forget about I just wasn't overly inspired by the look I'd created and I didn't know how to fix it or how to do what I was aiming to do.

Then, this Friday night past, unable to sleep, the perfect design came to me. I pretty much sewed the whole thing in my head and worked through every detail (which likely contributed to my inability to sleep). Upon awaking, I dug it up from the depths of my sewing projects and completely redesigned it.

4. ripped collar.jpg — I began this by completely removing the collar flap (I had always intended on that bit at least).

4. the collar.jpg — This piece I saved for later

Once that was out of the way I went on to these strange little slits at the two side seams. I don't know what their deal was but they were not doing the original shirt any favors (then again, what was?).

There were some flaps at the front of the shirt, folded over as a reinforcement for the buttons and button holes. I didn't want the extra fabric there so I cut those off as well. I also tore out the entire bottoms seam to encompass the re-hemming of the slits.

My picture capturing device was nearly dead at this point and it seems I found it necessary to leave the cord attached while taking the photos. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even notice it was there until I was editing all the images for this project.

8. pressing.jpg — With the flaps out of the way I ironed the shirt out *finally.

I should mention that in the three months of not working on this shirt I invested in an iron and ironing board. While I didn’t do it directly for this project I did have it in mind When I first purchased it.
It’s not all too apparent, but ironing made a HUGE difference. Huge.

Once the whole thing was ironed to my satisfaction, I pinned the two front panels together. I was intending to leave a bit of a v at the top so I only sewed up to a very specifically measured spot (I didn't actually measure it, I just guesstimated where I thought it should go).

I used a wide seam allowance to zip the front up as I was going for a kind of, well it's hard to explain, let me just show you. I wanted the flaps to show through the front of the shirt as a, something, I don’t know, style…

Make sense now? Good. I also needed it to be wider than the holes the buttons holes left on the right side of the shirt. Press that seam open so that it lies flat within the shirt.

I repeated the same thing on those pesky side slits, with the only addition being that I trimmed those ones down.

Next up, a super simple rolled hem all the way around the bottom of the blouse.

I feel like this narrative is getting really boring. Nothing exciting or noteworthy took place during this project though. However, for both my and your sake I'll try to pep the rest of this up.

With that hem completed I was able to move onto more pressing matters. Like what am I going to do with the sleeves? How should I finish the neck? What posses people to take up sewing? Better yet why am I one of those people?

I picked the second former (wait maybe former and latter can only be used when there's only two options... It’s way too late for me to be writing this and trying to make it make any sense). I went for the second inquiry in that list.

The answer: bias tape (not tape that is biased about something though). I don't even know why it's called tape to begin with really, it doesn't stick of its own accord you have to sew it in place. Anyhow, I'm getting off topic and this is already dreadfully long.

To make bias tape... (don't follow my instructions I didn't actually do it the right way. It's supposed to be on the bias of the material, but that really technical and confusing).

Use the left over fabric, cut some strips, sew (the diagonal part is key), cut, and iron it smooth.

Then you're going to iron that ribbon in half then open it up and iron the edges to the center. I made a video with my own technique for ironing down those crisp edges.

Yes, I burnt my fingers a lot during that process.

I then deemed myself unready to tackle attaching that to the neck line so I moved on to the sleeves. I find that making big potentially disastrous irreversible cuts always calms me down.

It was as I was happily chopping away that I noticed...

20. stain.jpg — A very obnoxious, very noticeable blue dot on the back of the sleeve.

It is on the back though so I'll never see it while I'm wearing the shirt, but it sure irritated me while I was making it.

I didn't feel like hemming the sleeves after the big chop so I decided to hem my little V key hole thing (a much more involved and more difficult task).

Amazingly, it worked really really well. This fabric kept on surprising me throughout this whole endeavor with just how easy it was to sew. I expected it to move or do something unhelpful, but cooperated beautifully.

22. try on.jpg — Next, I pinned the bias tape to the neck. Rather I started to and then realized I should probably try it on to make sure it would actually fit over my head.

I highly recommend doing this with projects. Even if it means getting stabbed in the head by twenty pins in the process. No one ever said sewing was safe or pain free.

It didn't fit so I went to work widening out the neck hole by cutting out a swoop until it looked about right.

23. mirror mirror.jpg — It's inside out but still exactly how I imagined it would look

Crazed chopping completed, I used the bias tape to bite the edge of the neckline fabric and pinned it in place. The really important thing was that there was a space where the V was that just had the tape running over it like a suspension bridge over a deep canyon.

Once all that was all stitched I had to make sure everything still fit.

Lastly, the sleeves.

Everyone sighs in relief as their eyes light on the that word, "lastly." Yes, I know, I know I'm almost done. I'll try not to make these as long in the future, but I can make no promises.