grama's doilys.

grama.

a few months ago, my grama passed away, and now their house is going to be sold. my grama seemed to have a hard time throwing things away, so my mom & aunts have been meeting there weekly to sort through everything for the past few months. it's been like a walk through the past - old photographs, cards my pap sent to my grama when he was away with the military, hideous & hilarious art projects my aunt made in school, and just about everything else you accumulate in 90 years.

pap.

i went over a few times while my mom & aunts were there. i knew i would want to keep some things that would end up going to goodwill. if it was up to me, i probably would have kept almost everything, because it all seemed to have a story or a memory of mine, my mom's, or someone else's attached to it. one thing my grama always had tons of were crochet doilies. she put them under almost everything she had sitting out, and a lot of her friends crocheted, so she was always getting them as gifts. i had a few projects in mind that involved doilies, so i mentioned to my mom that i would take a few. word got around, all my aunts started saving the ones they found, and i ended up with about 50 doilies in all different shapes, sizes & colors. it seems like every time i go home my mom has another stack of them for me. they remind me of my grama, and they are so pretty & unique, so i don't mind. i have a bigger project that will end up using most of them, but here's one lil project that's very simple & fun.

my mom's old sewing machine <3.

SUPPLIES

1 doily.

1 shirt.

straight pins

sewing machine (or a needle & thread). 

 start by figuring out where you'd like your doily to be. i have made a few of these, and found they look nice centered at the top of the back of the shirt. for this one, i decided i wanted it to be on the lower side. next, pin the doily to the outside of the shirt. make sure the shirt is laying flat & keep the doily as flat as you can while pinning to avoid weird bumps in the final product. once it's pinned, carefully try the shirt on to make sure you like the placement. once you're sure it's where you want it to be, begin carefully sewing along the outer edge of the doily. 

once you have sewn around the entire edge, carefully cut a slit through the back side of the shirt under the doily. once you have a cut started, cut the shirt out from under the doily as close to the edges as possible. if you don't want the shirt to be "see through" you can leave this step out, but i think it makes the doily stand out a lot more this way. that's it! 

 




you could really use this technique in a lot of other ways, like this jacket i found at a thrift store. using the same method, i sewed some fabric i found at an antique store onto the inside panel of the jacket, then cut out the outside of the panel. 


it's a fun way to use any scraps of fabric or doilies you may have laying around. i really like making shirts from them because i am happy to be using things that belonged to my grama. i'm sure they would have ended up in the trash or goodwill, so i am glad to have kept them in the family.