Welcome! And a teeshirt to tank tutorial!

Welcome to Sew Long, Wear Well. There's no deep meaning to the title- I just thought it sounded cute. I'm Maia, your friendly blogger; I'm a geek and a sticher, or a sticher and a geek, whatever your preference. I like making cute things for my one-year-old son to wear, and I love reusing nasty old stuff to make cute new stuff.

I'll start off with a one nap project- my favorite kind! This one is for me rather than the Little Man, but I'll be posting projects for him later, never fear. I've been inspired by Marisa at http://newdressaday.com to look through my closets and alter some things I'm not wearing.

This shirt is adorable, but was so tight under the armpits that I never wore it. Now that summer is on the way, I thought I'd try making it into a tank top and maybe getting a little more wear out of it.

I started by cutting off the sleeves. Then I used a tank top that fits me well and cut out the shape of the top, making sure to preserve the picture.



I found some brown ribbon from my stash and sewed it around the raw edges at the top of the shirt. I'm not happy with how this step came out- anyone trying this at home would do better to choose something stretchy for their version. Ribbon was hard to sew and came out looking... wobbly. That's the best word I can come up with.


I was hoping to have enough ribbon left over for straps, but alas, it was not to be. Instead, I used the hem of a teeshirt that I cut apart for another project (that I'll be posting later!) I pinned it in place using a mirror and sewed it down.

Still not entirely happy, I took the last of the brown ribbon and tied it around the straps. That added some cuteness and took care of the pesky ribbon wobble that had been bothering me.

Tadah! The finished project.


I had my husband take a pic for me, but he caught me with one of those facial expressions that you could use for blackmail, so I redid it. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out!