Embellished T-Shirt with Ruched Sides

I've had this plain white t-shirt from Target for a long time. It is a bigger size than I wear and was only about $4. So I bought it and wore it a few times. But it needed to be improved. I decided to do some experimentation on it and I love how it turned out!

First, I added the flowers. (I got the idea from this blog post for the flowers.) I cut circles from scraps of a pink t-shirt I had used for some other projects. I sewed them on with straight stitches.

To make the shirt fit better, I wanted to do some ruching to the sides. I did it the same way as this blog.

Making Fabric Flowers

I really think fabric flowers are neat. I made a few of my own from scraps (and even scraps of scraps!)

Start by sewing some strips together. It doesn't matter if they're exactly the same width.

Then, fold the strip in half and sew it with very LONG stitches near the raw edges (my highest length setting on my machine is 4).

The strip will probably gather as you sew. If not, carefully pull the bottom thread to gather the entire strip so it looks like this:

Then, starting at the middle and sewing down the raw edge, make a circle and stitch each row together. The back won't be too pretty (I'll have some ideas next week for covering this up):

And there you have your flower! To finish, just stitch the raw edge on the tail to the back of the flower.

Some variations:
For the pink flower below, I just gathered a single strip (to try this...don't fold it over to double it...just gather!).For the navy flower, I used a wider width of fabric. This is my favorite look.For the green flower which looks very full, I used a narrower width of fabric, doubled it, and gathered it very tightly before sewing it together.And here's a pink one I made with scraps from a t-shirt skirt.

Small Tote Bag

I made this bag with some really cute denim pants I bought at Goodwill. (I would've been tempted to keep them if they hadn't been made for someone who's at least 6" shorter than my 5'10" self...)
so here's a project I came up with:

I thought it would be easy to put library books or magazines into. I used a tweed fabric on the inside. I love tweed.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am trying this recipe for a turkey rub this year. However, I won't be making the turkey until Friday (we're going to the in-laws and my parents are serving pork chops on Thanksgiving!)

I didn't buy and start thawing the turkey til Monday! So Friday is the earliest I can cook it!

Happy Thanksgiving from our family!

Want to Make: Even More Baby Shoes

Did you see the results of baby shoe factory last week?

In case you wanted more ideas, here are some more patterns for baby shoes.

Pattern one
booties, not shoes
Mary Janes! Too cute.
Requires button holes. But they look easy other than that detail!
Here's a few cute pairs with cute color combos (boyish)!