Men's Shirt to Flowy Jacket

 Hello readers. When I saw this colorful shirt I thought it was so fun. The colors seemed to complement this striped dress so well. I love pattern mixing, I wanted to wear them together. But the plaid shirt was so big, it really needed a little help.

Before and after. 

I saw this long flowy shirt and loved the look of this piece.

 

I knew I needed to draw the shirt in at the waist and give it a little shape. I needed elastic. I used 1/4 inch elastic. 

 

I added the elastic to the inside of the shirt. It makes a huge difference in the shape of the shirt/jacket. I wanted a high waist but you can sew the elastic at your true waist level or anywhere you like it best. 

 

I put my shirt right-side down on my sewing machine and used a zigzag stitch to attach the elastic. I stretched the elastic while I sewed it to the shirt. I used the stripes as my guide but you can mark the height you want your elastic with chalk or a pencil to make sure you sew your elastic where you want it to be.

 

Now that the body of the shirt is done, let's do something with the sleeves.  

 

I had 2 ideas for this. You could roll up the sleeves. If they need help staying rolled up you can pin them. You could use safety pins or something like these pin on buttons. 

 

They are great for jean and jackets but they would be great for these sleeves too. They go on and off easily, so you can unroll the sleeves later if you want. 

 

I have short arms and the sleeves felt a little too bulky like this. (If you have more normal length arms or even long arms, this would work much better for you than it did for me.) 

 

I wanted to remove some of the bulk of the sleeves so I gave these sleeves a big cut in half. I spread the sleeves flat and cut them at the same time so they would be symmetrical. 

 

I turned the cut edge into the sleeve twice and stitched it down. This was really simple but it made the new sleeve look nicely finished. 

 

I still wanted to roll up the sleeves a little but it looked less bulky on my arms now. The elastic around the waist of the shirt gave it a more flattering shape. It is still oversized but it isn't overwhelming. This is a lot of color and pattern though. 

Just in case that is too much color and pattern for you, here is a look at the shirt styled differently. I paired it with a plain white t-shirt dress. I like this look a lot too. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.