Mens shirt refashion

My husband gave me one of his old shirts to remake. It was rather too big for him, so I decided to make a blouse from it. However I wanted something a little different.

I used a basic block pattern with front, bust and back darts. I allowed more room at the armholes and lengthened the block to hip length making it slightly A line. I cut the block out of newspaper and taped it together to make a 3D form, which I placed on my dress form to work on.

Once on the dress form I used a marker pen to adjust the neckline, and then drew sections with asymmetrical lines. cut the pattern off the dress form and opened out the pattern pieces. making small darts where necessary to achieve a flat pattern piece.

Having unpicked the shirt I decided to use the front as a button down back and cut out those pieces. The back section of the shirt I used to make the front of my blouse - laying the pattern pieces at varying angles to achieve the desired effect. I added seam allowance and cut out. I stitched the front panel together first and then the shoulder and side seams. I needed a little adjustment at the neck to ensure a good line. then used the left over back yoke to create a bias strip for the neck edge.  This was easy as the yoke had been cut on the bias anyway, so it was just a case of cutting the required width and pressing to conceal the raw edges.

I kept the sleeves as the were and stitched gathering stitches over the top of the sleeve and eased them in to make the sleeves fit and give a slightly gathered effect.
Hem and one final press and the top was complete.

I planned to wear it to church this week, but the forecast is for warm weather, so i might leave it until a cooler day.