This Shirt is Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S
If you know me at all you know that I love food. LOVE it. I initially went into the fabric store to buy some fried chicken fabric. I thought a cute little fried chicken summer blouse would be hilarious! Thankfully, they didn’t have fried chicken fabric they had something even better! This BANANA fabric! You had better believe I would find some way to make myself a banana shirt.
Things you will need:
- 1 1/2 meters of the fabric (If you think you’ll make a mistake like I did get a little bit more.)
- A shirt to make the pattern from
- Paper (for the pattern)
- Pencil
- Scissors
- String
- Sewing Machine
- Measuring Tape
- Elastic
- Safety pin
Pick out a shirt that fits well but fits loose. Fold the shirt in half with the sleeves folded in, then fold down the top as low as you want your shirt to be. PLace over your paper pattern of choice. I’m using an unfolded Value Village bag.
Tape two pens together and trace out the shirt with seam allowance. Easy peasy. Then cut out your pattern piece! Make a mark on your piece to indicate what line should be on the fold. Then make sure to follow the instructions you write for yourself. Not like me who did the exact opposite if what I told myself to do. Thankfully there was a workaround for cutting the fold side on the not fold side. The banana shirt could still be saved.
You should end up with two pieces that look something like this. Or if you’re me and mess up cutting the pieces you’ll end you’ll end up with a couple Frankensteined pieces that still look kind of the same but you’re hella stressed you will run out of fabric. Place them right sides together then pin and sew up the sides.
Take a break to eat a hamburger (sandwich or not a sandwich?) because the process so far has really stressed you out.
Fold in a hem on each arm whole onto the wrong side of the fabric. For a cleaner look, I should have double folded the hem so the raw edge of the fabric would be hidden and wouldn’t risk fraying.
To make the ruffle piece measure across your shoulders and take a blurry selfie cause there is no one to take a good picture for you. I actually got 45 inches when I wasn’t reaching to take a picture. Add an additional 10-20 inches to have room for your arms to move. I added 10 inches since I was nervous I would run out of fabric. If you do add 20 inches it will mean more ruffles! Take your final number (55 inches) and divide by 2 (27.5 inches).
Cut out two rectangles that are 27.5 inches long and 10 inches wide. If you want the ruffle to hang down longer you can add some inches to the width. Pin and sew the two pieces along the sides with right sides facing together. Then hem up one side on the ruffle piece. The other side will be sewn up into the banana shirt so you don’t need to worry about a hem for this one.
Use your measuring tape to find the middle of the body piece and the ruffle piece. Mark with a pin on each side. This is to make sure the middles match and both sides are sewn together evenly.
Put your two pieces together! Using the pins line up the middles of each piece. This step can seem a little confusing but you should see the wrong sides of both pieces facing you. Also, make sure that the hemmed edge of the ruffle is not the side you are pinning to the top.
Fold over a hem at the top that is wide enough to fit the elastic through. I chose a pretty wide elastic so I made my hem pretty wide. I have no exact measurements for this I was too overwhelmed. When sewing the hem up leave a space open to string the elastic through.
Use a safety pin to loop your elastic through the open part in the top hem. Try and keep the elastic from twisting while you do this. If you don’t have a safety pin use a giant bobby pin. It’s way harder and you will give up several times but if you just keep going it will eventually work. Try on your shirt and tighten your elastic to your body so it keeps the shirt nice and snug but doesn’t cut off circulation. Pin the elastic where it needs to be sewn for optimal tightness and then sew it together. Then sew up the gap in the hem you left open before. This will seal the elastic inside.
I wasn’t confident how the measurements were going to work so the last step I did was to hem up the bottom of the shirt to make sure it wasn’t too short. This way you can make it as long or short as you like.
Turn up some Gwen Stefani and put your awkward tan lines on display and roll out in your very own BANANA shirt. This project took a lot of perseverance and I gave up about five times. So glad I continued on though because this shirt is my new favourite thing! Also, it makes me laugh, it’s a banana shirt!
Hannah
