Stripe T-shirt with Floral Trim

I love this "mixing prints" fashion I am seeing everywhere at the moment. I saw a lovely outfit the other day in a magazine, a striped t-shirt with a floral skirt. I fear, however, that I am probably 10 - 15 years too old to really carry the whole look off, but I thought maybe just a little touch of print mixing might work for me.

I've had this striped T-shirt for years.

It's pocket was hanging off a bit, I could have just fixed it but it made me think maybe a flowery pocket would be nice.

 So off it came!

I went through my fabric stash to see what might work. These were test squares of my possible candidates:

The little flocked strawberries are cute, but I just don't think the print is small enough. 

I like this more abstract print but it's not quite what I was thinking of.

This is a piece of a waterfall jacket that is in my "waiting to be refashioned" pile. It's lovely but enormous, hopefully one day I will make it over and you will see it, but for now I've just sliced a bit off the front that I know I won't need for it's refashion.

Of the three I had I like this last one best so that's what I went with.

I cut a rectangle 10cm x 11cm, and ironed a 1cm turning on each side then turned one short side down again (this is going to be the top of the pocket)

For the bottom corners, I folded and pressed a bit of a mitre to make it nice and neat.

I gave the pocket top a line of top stitching, then pinned it in place on the t-shirt and top stitched it round the three remaining sides.

Next I thought a bit of trim round the sleeves might be nice too. So I cut 2 long strips of my flowery fabric on the bias, 5cm x 45cm to make some fat bias binding. 

To do this you iron it in half, wrong sides together. Then unfold and fold the long sides in to that centre fold and press again. Look at the picture - it's hard to describe!

I pinned this binding in place carefully all round the sleeve edge.

I didn't measure, I just started at the underarm seam, and pinned carefully making sure I wasn't pulling it tight. When I got back to the beginning I allowed about 2cm for turning and chopped the rest of my binding off. Then I folded the turning under.

The whole thing got a row of top stitching to hold it in place. My top stitching is not very neat and close to the edge but this way I knew for sure I was catching the layer on the inside too.

This is the overlapped bit under the arm, I did warn you it's not very neat, but it is tucked away under my arms where no one will see it! (and I appear to have painted my nails mid sewing session - actually I realised some useful close up pictures were missing a few days later!)

Julie

I'll be linking up to all these great link parties