Smocked T-Shirt

This past weekend, we drove down to Jacksonville, FL to visit Kevin's brother's family. Carter had a blast playing with his cousins, and we adults had a great time visiting, but that's for another post. I decided to take a couple of smocking projects with me because we were going to be in the car for 20+ hours (and I do not get car-sick). Needless to say, we WERE in the car for that long, and I got both of the projects finished :-)

The rattles are going to be a bubble for Mr. Baby, and the sailboats were for C-man. 

I have been wanting to try to make a smocked t-shirt for a while now. The smocking is smaller, and construction is less intensive than assembly of an entire outfit... With boys, I figure it's just another good skill to have :-) I found THIS TUTORIAL online which seemed extremely do-able and easy to follow, and it was. I had gotten a blue t-shirt at a consignment sale recently for $1, so here's what I did...

I gathered my supplies...

...attached stabilizer to the inside of the t-shirt...
(I use Sulky Sticky Stabilizer...it sticks right onto the material - no ironing - so easy!)

...made/attached piping around the edges of the smock & cut a piece of backing material...

...serged the backing fabric to the smock...

(this was not a part of the tutorial - I added this part because I wanted it to have a lining...)

...cut a piece of parchment paper the size of the smock+piping...

...measured my center and found my placement (my insert was 2.5"x 5.5")...

(I centered the rectangle horizontally, and I placed the bottom of the rectangle on the vertical center.)

...cut the X out of the middle...

DO NOT CUT AROUND THE EDGES OF THE RECTANGLE!!!

...folded and pressed the triangles inward to make a frame...

...topstitched very close to the edge all the way around the insert...

...then I serged the flaps of the triangle to the already serged edges of the smock...

(this was another one of my additions to the tutorial & it's not perfect looking, but I think it makes it more durable..)

....stood back and admired my 1st smocked t-shirt!!!

It's going to look so nice with these shorts which I also got at the consignment sale!

I may have to do more of these - not bad for a $1 T-shirt - 2 complete outfits for less than $10!!!