Making a fluttery shirt with excess trim more my style

My sister in law trades clothes with a friend, who gave her this little number. It wasn;t her style, so she gave it to me to play with. Obviously, it had a whole lot going on, and not necessarily in a good way. 

The first step was to remove all the unflattering gathering at the waist. I unpicked all the elastic stitches from the inside of the garment.

The fluttery sleeves were made by sewing in a flap of fabric, then turning it in and stitching the lower part of the sides together. The picture below shows the original seam on the right, and the seam-ripped side seam on the left.

Once both sides were open, I had a bog poncho-shaped garment. I used a well-fitting shirt to mark where I wanted the new side seams to be, creating a t-shirt shape.

  After I sewed up both sides and under the arms, I had a cute little t-shirt. It kept the cool lace at the bib and removed a lot of the excess trim around the edges.

My final step was to give it a high-low hem. Now it is much more my style!

Thanks for reading!  

-Amy