DIY Doily T-Shirt

If you remember, a couple weeks ago I went thrifting and bought the sheet to make my DIY Bedsheet Curtains. Well I also bought this gorgeous doily!

To make this T-Shirt refashion, first get a doily like the one above and a frumpy old T-Shirt you dont care about.

See, super frumpy. So frumpy I had to squint my eyes so I wouldn't see the hideousness!

Lay out your shirt on a flat surface face down.

Position the doily how you want it to look and pin it in place. I pinned mine so that half of the doily would be on the backside of the shirt, but if you wanted more doily you could always do two-thirds of it.

The next step is to sew the edge of the doily onto the backside of the shirt. For this step we will leave the doily whole and just worry about sewing the backside.

Then, flip the shirt inside out and cut out the back of the t-shirt from the collar to the doily edge being careful not to cut your stitches.

Flip your shirt so that the front is facing up and fold the doily over to the front.

Position it how you want it and then pin the doily to the shirt front.

Then sew the doily to the front just like you did on the backside.

Then, cut your doily directly in half across the neck of the shirt.

Then I cut the half circle out of the front of the doily. 

These next few steps really depend on what you want your shirt to look like. I wanted some of the doily to rest on the shirt (as opposed to the backside which I cut out the entire shirt part where the doily was).


At this point I tried on the shirt to determine how much in the front I wanted to cut out. 


I decided to first cut about an inch from the edge of the neckline from one shoulder to the other.


Then I decided I liked the way the doily looked on my bare shoulders so I cut to about a half inch from the edge of the sleeves. 


I also knew I wanted a little dip in the front of the shirt so I went a little deeper directly in the center of the shirt.

And Voilà!  A less frumpy and more fashionable shirt!

My adorable nephew agrees! Happy sewing!

Easy DIY Bedsheet Curtains

So I promise I havent forgotten about you all. I've actually had two blog posts photographed and almost written but I couldn't find my darn card reader to put the photos on the computer! (And I got distracted by a 1000 piece puzzle of the Sydney Opera House, but that's beside the point).




So my new room is great! Messy but great! The only thing is that I have this giant window through which the sun loves to grace me with its presence every morning around 6 am. 

See how bright it is!??!!


Ok, so maybe I overexposed the photo for dramatic effect.... It really looks more like this:

But still! That's a lot of light even with the blinds closed!






So I decided to make myself some curtains. And I didn't want to pay that much. So I went to my fave thrift store in Santa Cruz. I call it the Nifty Fifty (Zoë calls it the Fiddy) because there's a giant sign that says "50% OFF TODAY ONLY"  which is proudly displayed every day. 

So at the Fiddy I snabbed two things. 


The first was a pretty blue piece of fabric (I'm not sure what it actually was... it wasn't a bed sheet. maybe a table cloth? It had a weird piece of plastic on the bottom hem... I was really confused.) 

I also grabbed a cream colored doily which will be added to a T-shirt later on during the summer.




So here's how you make these easy DIY curtains!


First measure your window space. Mine was about 65 by 32 or something like that (I estimated)


Your sheet needs to be the same length but twice the height of what you want your curtains to be because our curtains are going to be double layered for extra sun protection! 


Lay out your sheet and cut it in half so that your curtains will be able to open in the center. Then hem the raw edge.

I LOVE this picture!

Then fold both halves from top to bottom with the wrong sides facing each other and the right sides on the outside. 


Now we're gonna make the pocket for the curtain rod (or curtain string)


I measured about 3.5 inches from the fold to put my pins in.

Then I used a zigzag stitch to make the seam for the pocket. 




Then thread the curtains onto your rod (or string), and that's all there is to it!

 Who's excited to be able to sleep in?? I AM!!!!