He'll never miss it from his closet. It was a plain, gray long sleeve t-shirt. I think he wore it during the winter as the base layer under his never-ending parade of comic book and video game t-shirts. I've stolen it, now, though, and I doubt he'd want it back if he did realize it! And I did it all on a regular sewing machine. No serger.
Mwahahaha...*cough*
So, I started with a plain, long sleeve t-shirt. I cut straight up the middle of the front, angling slightly at the top, and then taking out the whole original collar. See the blue line in the picture to the right.
Then, I cut the original cuffs off the sleeves.
On my sewing machine, I set the stitch for the shortest length and widest zig-zag. Then, I slowly pulled the raw edges through while I zig-zaged the ever-lovin' fool out of them.
You will have to hand feed it through, pulling away from the back to move the fabric though, and pulling toward you from the front to keep the fabric stretched and taut. I went over all the raw edges twice to make certain I got a nice, solid trim edge. It would probably take no time at all to do it on a serger, but not everyone has one of those. This is a way to do it with a plain old 89.00 sewing machine. ;-)
Keeping the edges stretched taut as you zig-zag them is what will give you the lettuce-ruffle edge.
And now, the finished project! Pretty nifty for a quick cardigan. I have a cute black braided t-shirt to wear under it with a pair of khaki shorts. Perfect knock-around vacation clothes for those of us who get really cold going from outdoors to air-conditioned indoors.
Oh, oh! Before and After shot:
