KCW: A trio of t-shirts

The theme for this season's Kids Clothes Week is 'upcycled'. I'm not a huge upcycler, mainly because I wear my clothes til they are literally falling apart, and by then there's not much left to work with. And while I have my eye on a few of my husband's shirts, he's not prepared to part with a single one (despite having nearly 100 of them, which I think is ridiculous). Nevertheless, KCW provided the impetus for me to clear out a pile of old torn, stained and too-small clothes that I'd kept in hopes of repurposing them in some way, and in doing so I found a couple of upcyclable tops.

Daydreaming about what to make, and having decided that this will be the year I sew some boring things like plain leggings and t-shirts, I sketched some ideas for t-shirts for R. I was aiming for 4 and managed to make 3 before preparations for our family holiday took over and I had to call it a day.

The grey t-shirt turned out the best. I used one of K's t-shirts and retained the existing neckline and shoulder seams, but cut out all the rest using one of R's tops as a guide. I also used the sleeve hems to be the hems of the flutter sleeves, which worked out great.

The bluey-grey t-shirt is not upcycled. It's made from some stretchy cotton jersey, with the flutter sleeves made from South African Three Cats fabric. I got lazy and didn't use my double needle for the hem; consequently it doesn't look great. Oh well...

T-shirt number three is made from an old top of mine and I have no idea how it looks on R because I haven't yet tried it on her and she was too hot and bothered after school to model anything (and I was too hot and bothered to take decent photos). I'm thinking the sleeves look kind of ridiculous - I didn't have much fabric to work with as I had to avoid a paint stain on the original top - but if they look silly on, I'll just downcycle it into a rag and call it a learning experience.

In my enthusiasm for upcyling I made a little stamp with a recycling symbol on it, so my upcycled garments now have their own special label!