It's Pinspired Friday! {DIY Color Block T-Shirt}

Alright lovelies, it's Pinspired Friday and I've got a good one for you today...

Color blocking is everywhere...and maybe I'm a little late to the party but dang it, I love the trend and I had to have some color blocking in my life. 

My sister-in-law gave me a whole bag full of t-shirts of all different sizes and colors (thank you!!) and I wanted something NEON. Am I too old for neon? Maybe. But I figured if I mixed some navy it would tone it down a bit and make it age appropriate. I originally wanted to make the bottom blue and the shoulders neon, but there was a logo on the yellow one that would have required a lot more thinking on my part and I wasn't having it. ;)

Here's what inspired this shirt:

Uber Chic for  Cheap: Refashion: DIY Color Block Tees

And yes, this girl is super cute and puts my selfies to shame later on in this post.

Need to have one for yourself? Here is what you'll need.

• 2 T-shirts - 1 of mine (the navy one) was a Hanes "Favorite T" so it was slightly more fitted and had cap sleeves... making it a little easier. The other (the neon one) was a Fruit of the Loom "BEST" shirt (basic shirt... the kind you see screenprinted locations or attractions on.) Both were the same 50% cotton/50% polyester though - which is important for a steady and even stitch when you stitch the two pieces together.

You'll also want:

• A sewing machine

• A bunch of straight pins

• A rotary board, a rotary cutter, and a big ole' ruler. It'll make your life easier than cutting it with scissors, trust me.

Here's my shirts. As I pointed out above, you'll want them to be the same material, and at least similar width wise in size. You can always make bigger smaller, but obviously you can't make smaller bigger. As you can see, I have about 1" or so on each side that is larger than the blue shirt. No worries, we tackle that later. Figure out which one you want on top, and which one on bottom. I picked neon on bottom, navy on top. If you have a logo that lines up with your armpitties, find a different shirt. Logo-less shirts are best for this. Kudos if you buy the same exact shirt in two different colors.

Grab your top shirt. Get it to lay perfect... smoothing wrinkles, making sure seams line up, etc. I used my ruler to make sure the arm pit lines matched up and were straight... important so you don't make an awkward wonky line.

I cut about 2 inches under the armpit. If you want your top half of the shirt to sit a little higher (more on the top of the breast, for example), you can cut it higher, but leave enough to for a seam allowance. Line up your ruler straight and cut.

I cut the bottom shirt about 2 inches under the armpit. Make sure it's straight, smooth and then cut.

You've now got two pieces of shirt, so turn both pieces inside out and start pinning around the parts to be sewn together. Before you start pinning willy nilly, you have to think about seams if your shirt has any (pin the shirt where the seams would normally go), and pay attention that you're pinning the pieces correctly and that the insides of the shirts will be both inside when you turn the shirts back inside out. Make sense? You don't want your top to be correct when you turn it back and your exposed hem to be facing the outside. When you go to pin, start pinning in one armpit region, just in case your shirts don't match up size wise like mine.

My yellow shirt didn't have any seams (score) so I didn't have to worry about where they were, which was good since I have to take that yellow shirt in a bit. Pin around the shirt, and if you're like me, you'll have more of one shirt than the other.

That white-ish piece in the middle left is the yellow shirt. Had to use crappy flash to get the seam to show though.

As you can see, I had too much yellow. So I lined up my excess with the blue seam and then pinned that down the shirt so I could make a new side seam so my fabric would match. NOTE: If you are using the same size shirt, don't worry about this step!!!

Pinning the new side seam... And yes, this means that my shirt will have one side seam. I ain't hatin'.

Now my side is seamed, and the blue and yellow fabric are equal sizes. Yay!

Switch your sewing machine to zig zag stitch. Zig zag stitches will help so the fabric doesn't pull as much when you sew this type of fabric. My machine was set to this stitch, size "3" length, 3 width, 4 tension. Pretty normal tension settings.

Start sewing in one of the armpits. I recommend the one you didn't have to make a new seam on if you can avoid it. If you used the same size shirts, either armpit will do.

Sew around, hit your reverse button to reinforce the beginning stitches... and turn that bad boy back out. You're done!


*deep breath* *awkward selfies...*

.Yes, this is me...and I did not 'shop this picture (even though I wanted to very badly...) 6.8lbs down in this weight loss journey...  and not stopping :)

Luckily, this shirt can shrink right with me. :) I think this'll look cute for spring with some white capri's or skinny jeans with heels like Uber Chic. :)

Update: I tried this shirt this morning with a cardi and necklace :) 

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Try it out - I might make another with a navy base and pink top. We'll see! :)

I'm linking up to these parties!