As we talked about last week, I enjoy getting creative with second-hand clothes. It makes me feel good to breathe new life into tired old clothes. Making your own clothes or upgrading clothes is another way to be more self-sufficient. I love tunic tops and making clothes you won’t find anywhere else. Today we will walk you through a quick and easy way to make a tunic top from a shirt and skirt.

For this step by step choose a top and a skirt to sew together into a tunic top. You can make a whole new look with this quick upgrade.

Gauging your personal length, cut your shirt to the desired length.

Again, use your personal desired length and figure in the length you cut your shirt. Cut your skirt to make the tunic the length you want. I left the hem intact so that I wouldn’t have to hem the finished tunic, plus I liked the little slits in the sides.

This part takes a little forethought, just like the talk we did on how to DIY a dress from a shirt and skirt. Turn your skirt the wrong side out. Put the shirt inside the skirt. It will be right sides together so that when you turn it right side out, you will have both sides right side out. You will be sewing on the wrong side of the material of the skirt. The shirt will be “stuffed” inside the skirt. Line up the side seams and the middle of both pieces of material front and back.

Pin the materials together, gathering any extra material as needed. Sew two seams parallel, for extra strength, all the way around.

Turn your tunic right side out and you’re done! Now you have a brand new, one of a kind tunic top. You won’t see anyone else wearing one like your new tunic top. Of course, there is the added bonus, you’ve recycled old or out of style clothes. As with most DIY, you can take any old thing and make something new or updated with it. As we have said before many times, you are only limited by your imagination and maybe what pieces you can scavenge to use.

We love Goodwill, yard sales, and flea markets. We shop for many of our materials at these places for all kinds of projects. You never know what you might find and there is always the chance you will luck up on that one perfect “thing”. You are likely to find much more unique materials at Goodwill, yard sales, and flea markets than you ever will at the regular commercial stores. You can also feel good knowing that you are helping to recycle other people’s unwanted stuff. Shopping second hand is just another way to go green.

We hope you liked this quick project and hope you will put this process to use on some of your own “older” things. Updated and upscaled clothes make for a great gift, especially for those “hard to shop for” people in your life. You can easily pick colors, cloth, patterns, and styles they like and make a one-of-a-kind, hand-make gift, just for them. You may even be able to get some browny points with a gift like this.

Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.