LED patch shirts
Close-up of LED patch

I made two LED t-shirts, one for me and one for Trevor. Both LEDs are made out of pieces of T-shirt from other projects.

The black shirt was an XXL organic cotton shirt, now modified to be a S organic cotton shirt. On the close-up of the LED on the black shirt: note the negative side has a bigger inside piece than the positive side. The white shirt was a free Yoplait shirt, so I put the LED exactly over the logo to hide it.

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Pattern Patch 2
green patched threadless shirt

This was another Threadless shirt which was no longer so beautiful. I saved the pattern by sewing it into the green shirt: I cut a hole in the green shirt and sewed the picture inside of it. I added a strip around the bottom, again, to make it a unified whole. Note that I accidentally sewed the picture in while the shirt was inside out, leading to an inside-out type result. The seams of the bright green shirt show, but I suppose it is ok. Read: "I meant to do it."
Pattern Patch 3
brown modified threadless shirt

Another modified Threadless shirt was the "We're Toast" shirt I bought many years ago. This is the tag, sewn on the back of an old brown Gap shirt.

Shirt front

Free-quilted patches
white shirt

This is a shirt with patches which I embroidered with the sewing machine. These were doodles in fabric markers sewn over in similar colors of thread -- I really like how they came out! I sewed them on an old, plain white gap shirt.

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Tube Dress
green striped tube dress from t-shirts

I cut up two green shirts to make this green striped tube-top dress. Pretty exciting stuff, especially since spring is coming to California!
Rectangular Paneled Shirt
butterfly tshirt front view

This shirt was created from an XL white t-shirt and a panel of jersey print. The body is 2 large rectangles, and the sleeves are made from the sleeves of the XL shirt. I used the hem of the white T-shirt to give a neckline to the jersey. A very simple design, sewn together using the serger, produced this funky shirt. 6/9/13

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Butterfly Patch
butterfly tshirt front view

I made this shirt from some scrap fabric from the Scrap Exchange and a shirt I hadn't worn much because it was very thin. These fabrics combined to make this non-see through butterfly patch thing shirt. Above is the butterfly I used as the pattern. It was made by local artist Clyde Jones, who makes animals (some 2D, mostly 3D) out of old logs and fake flowers, the main tools being a chain saw and nails.

Inspiration

Pattern Patch 1
Patched tshirt front view

I own quite a few Threadless shirts -- shirts with simple, artistic designs made by real people. This one was called "Best Friends Forever", and depicts a Catholic priest, Hasidic Jew, Buddhist Monk, and another religious fellow, holding hands and skipping. The shirt eventually got pretty nasty from wear, so I didn't want to wear it but I wanted to save the pattern. Solution: sew the best friends to a five dollar blue t-shirt. I added sleeves and a blue strip around the bottom to unify the shirt a bit, and also sewed the Threadless "tag" thing to the back of the shirt.

Shirt back

T-shirt Pillow
pillow from tshirts

This pillow was made at Stanford (and stuffed at home) out of the two Threadless shirts from which I made the two above shirts. The back is a blank piece from a t-shirt someone across the hall didn't want any more. I didn't do any measuring on the squares, so it has a nice non-perfect appearance, but is still quite soft and nice.
T-shirt skirt
orange skirt from stanford shirt

I bought a large T-shirt at the Stanford Store and made it into this Stanford skirt. The blue tie is from my friend's blue shirt, and she used a bit of my orange as the tie for her skirt. It's pretty cute! I got the idea for the skirt from a book my boyfriend got me for the holidays.
Comments, suggestions, questions? e-mail kaytdek(at)gmail.com. Please do not use any content on this site without permission from and credit to Katie Dektar. Last updated 2013