Grandma's shirt rehashed

Well hello! It's been a while since I have last posted. Deep apologies for that. In the meantime, I haven't been completely estranged from my sewing machine... I tackled a couple of pants resizing projects, for both myself and my sister, however, nothing really interesting, bare necessities, if you'd please.

On the other hand, I have a full rack of clothes for waiting for me to think up something to do with them, and then do it, eventually, but my life had become somewhat really time-consuming lately. Apparently, improving your life takes up so much of your time and even more of your energy, but it is worth it in the long run.

This time, I have chosen my grandmother's shirt. It had an cool print making the colour of grey visually interesting. So, I knew I had something to do with the side openings which were so granny-styled and all pro hide-your-shape, so naturally, the first thing I did was to unpick the slits so they could be stitched together. Since this shirt was hanging on the refashion rack for soo long once I have commenced it, when I took another look at it, I realised there was more to be done, so I proceeded with my scissors. I have cut off the sleeve cuffs, the collar and bottom of the front panels. I have cut the neckline in a V-shape.

Next up, I zig-zagged the raw edges (I haven't got a serger), pinned and basted the edges and pressed them prior machine stitching them. Aaaaand then, my machine started messing with me. Fuzzed and knotted thread, breaking the thread, tension coil acting erratically... I was ready to give up. Finally, I managed to persuade the machine to give me those few stitches, but then i noticed that the thread tension messed up the collar and it was all wobbly. Nooooo! So I had to unpick it... and do it again. While picking the seam, I managed to poke a couple of holes along the seam, so... I was all 'NOOOOOOO...' and about to give up again. Tried to find some decorative ribbon or something similar to cover this mishap, but my stash didn't hold anything matching the colour scheme of the blouse, and I didn't want to leave the holes visible... So, I thought... zig-zag stitch would probably work better and wouldn't cause the wobble, so I zig-zagged instead of straight-line stitching the collar and it was not wobbly this time. So, win. However, the issue of two tiny holes I made while picking the wobbly seam was still there... and then it hit me. Use the parts of the removed sleeve cuffs to hide the holes and decorate the neckline! Symmetry? No way! So, here is a nearly failed grandma's shirt refashion: