This year, I’ve taken an unintentional break from crafting. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still worked on a project here and there, but the ideas have been piling up without much execution. I got hit with the craft bug within the last month and decided to go digging through my “unfinished” pile of half-worked-on clothes. In my pile was this shirt I started like two years ago, but the frustrating thing was that it was 90% done. If I spent a few more hours on it, it could have been finished. So I spent those few hours and busted through.
This olive t-shirt was given to me by an old neighbor. It had a few holes, was stretched out, and fit sorta funky. I have a lot of beads and so I wanted to remake this into something fun. I resized the shirt, added a new back (since there were tiny holes) with this lightweight printed fabric that I found for cheap at Joann’s, and swapped the sleeves.
For the decoration, the most important part, I had to figure out how much area of beads I wanted. I just started sewing them on to get a feel of how I wanted to execute this. With me, sometimes I just need to go with the flow before having a well developed idea.
I eventually loosely sewed a guided line across the top portion of the shirt. I gathered a bunch of green beads with a small batch of accent colors like red, silver, and spotted white. The bead layout was very sporadic; I still didn’t have a plan or pattern. I just sewed on beads until I no longer wanted to sew on beads!
When I finished the beaded top, I decided I didn’t really like the 3/4 sleeves I sewed. I cut the sleeves short, and turned the shirt into a crop top because I’ve come to realize shorter shirts sit better on me. I have wider hips and some shirts are loose on top and tight at the bottom. The more you know about what fits your body 🌈
I’ve already worn this shirt at work and received so many compliments. I kinda also love adding beads to shirts. I’ve become obsessed. This will be the first of many!
Dig up your beads and sew them onto shirts! I promise, it’s fun.
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