Black shirt + cat shirt = cat gym shirt refashion

Thanks for all your comments about my black and white stretch lace tank for the gym.  I like that I've inspired some readers to try making some gym tanks of their own.  Why not look good while working out--and in your own-sewn tanks?     (I won't make gym pants, it's too easy to buy the Everlast ones at Sears and they fit me well.  I have been having trouble finding gym skirts, though, so I might need to make one....or just see if Marshall's has any.)

Oh, and about my red Vogue dress--I wore it today for the third time and I definitely need to do something about the armholes/bust.  I left room so I could make the bust area wider, though this will require a bit of finesse with my bound armholes.  It feels a bit risky but I think I can redo what I undo if necessary.  Fixing it will make me feel more confident while wearing it.

Soooo...I bought myself this cat shirt (above)  for the gym, for Christmas in 2012, from an etsy seller.  It was one of those "unisex" shirts; i.e. boxy and shapeless, but I loved the graphic. (If the seller had women's fit, I would have bought it.)

I thought I'd "take it in a bit" to make it less boxy and more shapely.  I took it in too much by, ahem, cutting it first, and because I had cut it, there was no going back.  I reported it like this on my blog.  Here's the visual:

I was super frustrated.  It was supposed to be an easy refashion and I messed it up.
But I still loved the cat graphic.  Into the magic closet it went.

Soooo...18 months later I decided "I can do this".

I bought a t-shirt from JCP.
I cut out the cat face.


I pressed the cat face and the shirt with my Elna press.
I'm still loving my Elna press, btw.
And I still don't know who I am, doing all this pressing.  I press everything, even patterns, like you're supposed to, I know, but I was not much of a rules follower when it came to sewing.

Ok, back to the point.
I taped the cat face to the shirt.  I know I could have done this in a multitude of other ways but I was feeling confident.


I then sewed the face to the shirt with black thread.

I pressed again.  I know.  I also know the edges will curl with the first washing, but that's ok.  I wasn't going for applique here.  It will look fine with curled edges.  (I got that idea from a RTW gym shirt that has a frog on it, and frog's mouth is a piece of fabric stitched on, raw edges ablaze with wild unfinished abandon).

Now it looks like this:

And it looks like this on Izzy:

And it looks like this on me:

I went to the gym 4x last week during vacay (and made 2 tanks + this refashion) so I could have worn it before this post but I had not taken the pictures yet.  This means I have no classmate reactions, but I don't know if anyone will say anything about this. And I really wanted to take the pictures before wearing it--you know what I mean?  So I think this will be worn to balletone on Wednesday (on Monday I will wear a new lacey tank to boogietone--I plan to blog about it on Monday night).  Fingers crossed.

yes

Crazy shot of the day


The pink Whole Foods hibiscus is in bloom today.  Aloha!!!

Be well!