For the Love of Gauze

I was recently surprised by being gifted with a very nice, white, gauze shirt from my sister. She knows that gauze is my favorite fabric, and it has been since I discovered it when I was a teenager. Being that I live in southwest Florida, I'm fortunate that I can pretty much wear it all year long. Bonus!!! Here's a photo of it in its' original state.

I could have left it 'as is' and been content, but the desire to 'shzooshz' it all up was too strong, especially since it was the perfect base in which to do so.

As always, the first thing I do is the cutting, so I cut off the cuffs and portion of the sleeves. I'll keep these pieces to use on something else. Nothing gets wasted here!

Then I cut off the collar leaving the short band intact. I actually really liked the look, and it was perfect for adding beads to it.

The next step was to dye it. Now, it used to be that you could easily find dyes in many colors available in grocery, craft, dollar, etc. stores, but I find that this isn't the case anymore. While they do carry the product, it is very slim pickings. I don't know if it's because there is a problem with shipping or maybe dying fabrics is not as popular as it used to be. So, with this being said, I ended up with neon green and deep purple liquid dyes. While I do like both colors, it would have been nice to have more color choices available. Oh well...

This is how the shirt came out after its' bath in what looks like the beginnings of a 'Gauzilla"! It's pretty neon, but it doesn't glow in the dark 'jest' in case you were wondering. 😉

At this point, I was ready to do some embellishing. I had no set plan, but I knew that I wanted some beading added to the collar. Now I had never tried sewing beads on the very edge of fabric, so it was a good time to try since the opportunity presented itself to me. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't very difficult to do. It was a little tedious, but I have never had a problem with detail work, so it all worked out!

After completing the beading around the neck band, I looked through my bead cases and came upon some unique purple ones that I felt would be perfect. The problem was that I didn't have very many so I had to find a place to add them on that wouldn't require more than what I had available. Ah ha! I found a place in between the existing buttons.

So now the obvious stuck out to me. The pocket looked lost in the green moss, so I gave it a little pizzaz with some multi-colored silk embroidery threads. I liked them all wild and all but thought that giving them a trim would be more in line with the style that was coming together.

All that was left now was adding cuffs to the sleeves. I happened to have some other very thin gauze that I had left over from making a ghost decoration at Halloween last year, so I was happy to find another purpose for them. I dyed that gauze the deep purple color, cut them into cuffs and then sewed them on to the sleeves. They still needed a little something, so I ended up sewing some silver-colored charms on each one. I had more of these charms but sewing them all on would have made the cuffs too heavy for the sleeves, so I nixed that idea. I'm pretty sure that I will be adding them onto some other piece of clothing though. You can bet on it!

And this is what that very nice white shirt morphed into below.

So, there you have it! Sometimes you don't always have to use old clothing in order to upcycle it. You can take something new, tweak it, and then add some leftover items to it.

Please Note: Before I close, I just wanted to let you all know that I have been informed of several problems that have been reported to me by some of you. Whether you are not receiving my weekly campaign emails letting you know that the new blog has been published, only receiving the campaigns sporadically, or not being able to comment, etc. please know that I have been diligently emailing and making calls to Wix in order to solve the problem. It seems that when I get one issue resolved, another one or more appear. I am very disappointed with the web hosting and if this continues, I am going to have to switch gears. I just wanted to give you a heads up. Thank you in advanced for your understanding.

Until we meet again next Wednesday, try your hand at upcycling something and have fun doing it!  

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