Men's button up to women's button up tutorial (or button up peplum top tutorial)

 Way back in the beginnings of this blog I gave myself a challenge to refashion something every single day for 30 days, and because of that I learned more creative ways to refashion, expanded my knowledge in alterations and sewing, and blogging. Well, for me that was quite enough to handle for 30 days being a beginner at blogging. What I regret is not doing tutorials of everything I created! So one by one I have been posting tutorials of the things I created per someone's request. This plaid shirt is one of the many! 

I found this plaid beauty in the DI pile up at my mother-in-laws, I'm pretty sure it was my father-in-laws...if he only knew what it looked like now.

Check out the before picture after the page break.

Supplies:

oversized button up top

sewing machine

thread

scissors

pins

Instructions:

1. Cut the oversized button up an inch or two below your natural waist. Take the top half and cut off the sleeves. Then try it on inside out, mark where it needs to be taken at the sides and sew the new side seams so it is nice and fitted. Cut the arm opening to hit a half inch from where your shoulder seam will be. Do the same with the sleeves, make sure the openings of the sleeve and the top half of the shirt are the same length. You may need to take a pocket off if there is one.

2. Take the bottom half and gather the cut end to be the size of your waist.

3. Re-attach the sleeves by turning the top half inside out and the sleeve right side out (right sides together) and pin the openings. 

4. This is what it will look like attached.

5. Attach the gathered bottom half and the top half right sides together. Make sure the middle button parts line up perfectly. 

6. Serge the raw edge to prevent fraying, you can use a zig zag stitch or what you prefer on a sewing machine instead.

7. Top stitch the finished inside edge to just above the gathered seam to make it look nice and finished. One thing I would have added was a button or hook & eye right where the seams meet up because it easily pops open.