xoxo Grandma: It All Started With Butterfly Leggings

This project all started when I saw these adorable butterfly footless leggings at the store the other day. Aren't they the cutest thing? I immediately knew I needed them... or I should say, I immediately knew a certain granddaughter of mine needed them. Once I purchased them, I had visions running through my head of the adorable top I could refashion to wear with these fun leggings. That, of course, lead me to this fun refashion.

A while back, one of my daughters gave me this blue and white women's button up shirt to reuse. It turns out, the colorful butterfly pattern and this cute stripped top coordinated perfectly. Here's how the child's tunic looked after the refashion:

If you'd like to refashion a button-up dress shirt into a girl's tunic, here's how to transform it:

Cut the sleeves from the shirt.
Fold the shirt in half
Cut a new neckline using a shirt that fits the child.

Cut two, 1 1/4" stripes of fabric. Sew these together at a diagonal and press.
Cut down the sleeves to fit your child.
Sew the sleeves back into place.

Sew the seam tape around the neck's opening.
Topstitch along the bottom of the seam tape.

For extra pizzazz, cut out a butterfly shape from white fabric.
Machine embroider the butterfly shaped fabric onto the shirt.

Draw the embroidery details using a water soluble pen.
Pull out some embroidery thread and stitch away. It took me three tries before I got the butterfly to look like I wanted it to. So don't despair, stitch and unpick if needed.

Next at the waistline, add a belt loop to each side of the tunic by doing the following:
Thread three strands of embroidery thread through a needle, pull the thread to the middle and tie the thread so that there are six strands of thread knotted at the end.

Through the wrong side of the tunic, push the needle into the center of the side seam. Make a loop that goes loosely around the belt. Then stitch loop chains all around the thread pulling the thread tight after each loop.

This is how that belt loop will look before you tie off the threads. The loops keep the belt in place quite nicely.

This belt was also refashioned from one of my old belts. I cut the length of the belt down to about four inches larger than my granddaughter's waist. Then I reshaped the end of the belt into a new point. Finally, I added five new holes using a hole puncher, called a Crop-a-Dile, which will punch through anything!

Out of the two fall outfits I made for this little girl, this is my personal favorite.

Of course, this cute girl's favorite part of the outfit was the candy bracelet. Within about 15 minutes of driving us around her new state, when we went to visit last week, she had this bracelet entirely consumed! Oh, how I love this girl! xoxo Grandma

Linked to Straight-Grain, Threading My Way, Creating My Way to Success, Project Run and Play, Totally Tutorials

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