Bows Before Clothes

Original Post: February 6, 2013

I have been really into oversized sweaters/ jumpers lately. It is a really simple concept and outfit to assemble. Simply throw on an oversized sweater and some leggings and you’re done. Simple and yet so chic! A couple of weeks ago I was doing my normal Target stroll, when I came across some mens sweatshirts that were on sale. I quickly bought one and the wheels began to turn in my head. The fortunate and somewhat unfortunate (for my wallet) thing about my local Target, is that is located adjacent to a fabric store, yikes!! I went in and bought some fabric and came up with a super cute way to jazz up my basic sweatshirt. Enjoy!!

Materials

1. Cotton sweatshirt

2. 1/4 to 1/2 yards of fabric

3. fabric pen/ white eyeliner

4. Tape measure

5. Fabric shears

6. Needle/ Thread

7. Iron

8. Clothing pins

9. Sewing machine (optional)

Instructions

Hold sweatshirt in half, length-wise. Cut off collar and bottom hem off sweatshirt. Try sweatshirt on. Stretch collar to your desire. Remove sweatshirt. Lay sweatshirt flat. Take your tape measure, measure shirt from collar to bottom of shirt. Divide measurement by the number of bows you plan to place on your shirt, to determine the approximate size your your bows. (For my sweatshirt, I measured 24″ and wanted 6 bows; therefore each bow should be around 4″ long). Using your tape measure again, start from the middle of your sweatshirt and mark down your sweatshirt approximately the width you want your bows to be. (I wanted my bows to be approximately 5″ wide). Take your fabric shears and cut out the center portion of your sweatshirt.

Now is time you work on your bows

To learn how I constructed my bows, check out my tutorial from my post: (Make them booties POP!!)

Turn your sweatshirt inside out. Pin down your top bow. Pin down each side of the bow onto each side of the sweatshirt, making sure the top bow aligns with the collar. Repeat the same steps for the bottom bow, making sure the bottom bow aligns with the bottom hem. Take the remaining bows and place them evenly between the top and bottom bows. Pin down bows onto the sweatshirt. Sew down bows onto the sweatshirt. Turn sweatshirt, right-side out. Tada!! You have yourself a brand new original bow-utiful top