The Trouser Project: Part II

Following the success of the The Trouser Project I decided to launch into a second, slightly less intense project with the goal of taking an ordinary t-shirt and snazzing it up a bit. Unfortunately in this project I didn’t make my own t-shirt which would have fit with the whole Trouser Project ideology much better so this one was about coming up with and implementing my own design while still pushing some of my sewing ‘skills’.

The Design was pretty straightforward. I wanted a black t-shirt with tear marks across it revealing a bright/electric blue colour underneath and I wanted it put together so that over time the edges of the tear marks would start to fray giving the design some changing interest over time.

The three marks were sketched onto the shirt in chalk, cut out (with a reasonable amount of care) and the blue material was hand stitched in behind to hold it in place. Once it was all looking pretty much as it should I hauled out the trusty sewing machine one more time and with extreme daring switched it to one of those weird stitches where the needle goes back and forth and side to side. Once I’d stitched around the tear marks I went around each and started fraying the edges to give it a slightly torn look.

A bit of planning, one night’s work and I’ve got a t-shirt that I like and has a bit of style. With a bit of thought and patience the do-it-youself approach to fashion can be much more interesting and certainly more rewarding. Next time I’ll have to have a go at making the whole t-shirt.