Jenna Thornborough

I chose this shirt to upcycle because I love the colour but it is hard to iron, and always looked scruffy. I paired it with a grey cotton/lycra jersey knit fabric to create a nice casual tunic.

The kick-off post inspired me to keep the collar stand, placket and yoke from the original shirt to create a colour blocked effect. It also gave me the idea to use the rest of the shirt as fabric to create the hood and bias binding for the armholes.

My favourite part about this upcycle was creating the dandelion image. The shirt fabric frayed easily and looked like dandelion fluff so I stitched scraps of the fabric on, then frayed them with a slicker brush. Then I used varying sizes of zig-zag stitch to fill in the stems of the seeds, and the stalks.

I had a lot of fun creating this entry. It was my first time trying many of these techniques so I learnt a lot and I’ve got a ton of ideas for more upcycles.