The greatest rivalry in college football – Army vs. Navy was the second weekend in December. That was awhile ago, and I had this post half written forever so I finally decided to finish it and hit publish anyway. Since we didn’t have any plans to do anything to celebrate, originally I was not going to make anything for the little girl. Then my husband asked if we had anything for her to wear. I then sorted through some drawers to get rid of too small clothes and I found a shirt that would make the most adorable Army baby shirt. Fast forward a couple hours, and I cut up two (scratch that – three) adult women’s t-shirts to make 1 baby shirt. Not sure how that happens…
I’m doing another version of the Bimaa from LouBee Clothing, this time with the shawl collar. My last version is here.
The front of the shirt didn’t go up high enough for the pattern, so I used the arm of the shirt to cut out the extra fabric I needed.
The sleeves and cuffs came from the back of another black t-shirt I had set aside to make a t-shirt quilt out of. The shawl collar was supposed to be the only new fabric in this shirt (Thank you, Girl Charlee Black Friday Sale). Look ahead to see what really happened.
This is what is left of my former t-shirt! Just imagine another black shirt without a back – the black doesn’t photograph well. Turns out this is how it takes two three women’s shirts to make one baby shirt.
Once I cut out all the pieces, I rethreaded the serger with black thread. Does anyone else have trouble deciding what thread color to go with on a multi-color project? I considered using black and white as needed, but that seemed like a lot of thread changing. In the end, when I had to piece together the front pattern piece there was black fabric in almost every single seam so I went with black.
When it came time to put the shawl collar on, I didn’t like the striped fabric. It would have worked, but it wasn’t quite as athletic as I was going for with the color blocking and logo on this shirt.
That led to the 3rd t-shirt being cut up. I need a black collar. Luckily, I am never going to wear my old unit’s t-shirt again so it doesn’t matter that I cut the bottom six or so inched off to make this collar. I love it with the black collar!
Here is a closeup of the shawl collar. I tried to lighten up the photo to see it better, but it is still kind of hard to see. Black is hard to photograph!
The back – slightly wrinkled from the fit test.
Game Day outfit is below! She was almost adorable enough to make up for the terrible football game.
Then, because it seemed logical, I didn’t want the fabric I used for the collar to go to waste, and I had an extra black color block piece for the front… I cut out another bimaa. The next one is below.
Linking up to Whoop Whoop Fridays at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Anything Goes Monday at Stitch by Stitch, and You Flew Sewing Linkup at Feather’s Flights.