A shirt re-con for my daughter

This blouse began life as a high end men’s dress shirt. I bought the shirt at my favorite thrift store intending to transform it for my daughter. The shirt is made out of a smooth high quality shirting. The collar band had worn thin.

I used this thrifted Ann Taylor linen top as a guide for cutting and basic shape for the blouse.

I folded the shirt in 1/2, placed the white linen top on top of it also folded in half and then used th white top more or less as my pattern. My daughter didn’t want a strappy top so I cut accordingly.

This is the rough shape I ended up with. I cut darts, intending to make a fitted top. I sewed up the darts , the side and shoulder seams ad had my daughter try on the roughly shaped blouse. I had cut the darts too wide. and the blouse opened over my daughter’s belly in a really unattractive way.

I added godets to the lower edge of the blouse until the fit flattered my daughter. I serged the neck and armholes. The neckline and hem are further reinforced with twill tape ( serged on then turned and topstitched). the armholes are turned twice and stitched.

My daughter will add a hook and eye at the neck and below the bottom button. She thinks that it has a Ralph Lauren vibe. I have the New Englander’s love of crisp blue and white cotton.

When my daughter was two, we attended a bar mitzvah in a synagogue with very different way of dressing than our own synagogue. This was the late 1980’s. all of the other little girls were wearing dresses that looked like Victorian couches. I put my daughter in a Florence Eisman dress made out of mattress ticking embellished with appliqued stylized flowers. It was a very New England way to dress a little girl for a fancy event. I realized after a few minutes that next to all of the Victorian couches my daughter’s dress looked, perhaps a bit dour. It was just a different language of dress.

I’m glad that my daughter does get the beauty of mitered blue and white stripes.

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