Welcome to another instalment of Refashion Wednesday, oh wait it’s actually Thursday, well lets just pretend it is Wednesday then.

After dropping Sophie off at a playdate yesterday I went for a quick trip to Value Village looking for a crew neck kids sweatshirt that I could make over since I had a project in mind.  Rookie mistake, you can’t go looking for something specific because they are never going to have it.  Since there was no crew neck sweatshirt to be found that would work I just started thumbing through the racks.

And let me just say, I love thrift shopping!  I especially love it because you aren’t limited to shopping in your own size since I can just tailor things to fit.  What was going to be a quick trip turned in to 45 minutes and quite a few great pieces purchased.  One of the shirts that I picked up for Sophie was just a boring black and white plaid with a hint of red in it.  It looks more like a boys shirt but went ahead and got it thinking I could make some easy and quick adjustments to it and have a cute little shirt for her to wear to the pumpkin patch on Sunday.

Here is the before:

Not horrible but definitely never going to work for my skinny mini of a little girl.  She reluctantly tried it on for me so I could get an idea of how much it needed to come in on the sides and the sleeves.  I needed to take at least an inch off each side as well as the arms.  I also decided to remove the pocket so hopefully make it look less boy.

I initially thought I would just add some horizontal ruffles starting about half way down to the bottom of the shirt but thought that would be a bit much.  Instead I decided to take two pieces of red cotton 2×30 finish the edges on the serger and then just ruffle them to make vertical ruffles.

Such a quick project, about 15 minutes, and a much more girly version of a plaid shirt.

What do you think?  What would you have done with a boring plaid shirt from a thrift store?  I would love to hear your ideas.