Ring Around the Ribbon top

I hope everyone enjoyed the visit from Amy at Nap Time Crafters. Isn’t she just amazing?!?! Go give her some bloggy hugs for sharing a playdate with us.

So today’s show is brought to you by Rapidly Growing Children Miracle Growth Tonic.

Do your little ones ever have a shirt that is just a bit too short, mainly because they grow over night by like 3 inches and even though it fit YESTERDAY somehow, today….not so much? Well mine does all the time it seems and since I am not a fan of the Dora shirt too short look I figured out a super simple, fun way to lengthen an otherwise perfectly good shirt.

 So this one is sooooo sooooo sooooo easy and a great ribbon stash buster.

Take the too short shirt and decide how much longer it needs to be. For me it was only a couple inches so I settled on adding a total of about 3 inches in case The Elder A decided to do more of that overnight growing thing.

Mysteriously outgrown shirt

Next pick your color scheme with 3-4 different types/colors of ribbon. It helps if they are all the same width but they don’t have to be. Measure across the bottom of the shirt, to determine how many ribbon across you will need front and back and then, based on the number and width of your ribbons cut them to the desired extra length you are adding (plus seam allowance).

Decided color scheme

So mine look like this, pile of ribbon, all cut 5 inches long. I cut some extra just in case and plus there was just a bit left on each roll anyway. Fold them all in half and since we all know ribbon likes to fray you will need to seal the ends off somehow. I used my serger and just kept feeding them in a long line until I had them all sewn up. If you don’t have a serger just use a wide zig-zap stitch over the tops. You can also use something like Fray-Check but I personally am not a big fan of that stuff, it never fails to leave an oily stain on something.

Pile of ribbon

Cut 5 inches long

Serging the tops.

Pretty little ribbons all in a row

Ok so now just pin the ribbon to the wrong/underside of your shirt and sew them on. I used the stitch line that was already on the shirt to “hide” the new seam where I was attaching the ribbons. The trick is to only do a few at a time, lining them up side by side carefully. If you try to do the whole shirt all at once you will likely be off because the ribbons will shift and move on you as you sew the others on.

Pinned and ready to sew

Hiding the new seam line

See…I warned you about the shifting

Go all the way around and…..

Finished!! I have no idea why she is holding her shoulders like that. She said she was posing….who knows

That’s it!!! Done! See told ya easy as pie. (beware random rambling….)BTW where did that come from? Have you ever made a pie, from scratch? It is not in fact easy. (rambling ended)

 I also added a tiny color coordinating ribbon at the top, just for fun. You could do a ribbon bow or an appliqué or nothing at all.

 This top will also fulfill any garment twirling requirements your daughter might have on her clothing at the moment. Oh that’s just mine…huh well lucky you then.

It TWIRLS!!!!

Ready…..

set…..

ADORABLE!!

So there you go, a quick easy fix to the weed like growth spurts our kids go through.

I hope you all are having a great summer, we are sweltering here in Alabama but what else is new? Oh wait I know!!! Get excited because next week I am going to do a new series, Sewing for Sisters. This is going to be in honor of my new little girl dropping in to the world at any moment. I am going to have an awesome guest post from a woman who knows a thing or 2 about raising sisters. Wanta guess who she is? Stay tuned more to come in a few days. Happy Sewing

Where shall we link to today

 

Donya