Creating Patterns

There was a shirt I’d been waiting to upcycle. I didn’t know what to do with it, but, after having it sit in my drawer for months, I decided to take it out and figure it out. I cut off the arms, fixed the neck, and turned it into a crop top. Still, it wasn’t done. There was something missing. The top was white, and had nice, chunky, horizontal blue stripes. I looked at it for a while, sitting on my floor, next to the scissors. After several hours of it sitting there, and me coming in and out of the room, wondering if inspiration had struck, it finally did.

And, that is how I decided to paint exes, in black paint, on the front and back of one of my favorite upcycling projects. This shirt was originally gifted to me by my mother… to do whatever I wanted to do with it. It sat in my drawer for months, and, on one of those days when in-between projects, I took it out and stared at it.

Sometimes, staring is all you can do.

That’s one of the best things about upcycling: turning something old, that nobody wants, into something new.

After watching it sit there, I spent an hour and a half painting little black exes in between the stripes on the front. For a little bit, I wasn’t sure whether they should be on the back, too, but after finishing the back, they were definitely meant to be there.

Looking at t-shirts with stripes, blouses with polka dots, and hoodies with leopard print, I’ve come to realize that clothing is much, much more fun with patterns. What’s so nice about upcycling is that, if you find something plain and boring in a consignment shop, you can always take it home, add a little paint, re-dye it if you want to, or scribble all over it with permanent markers.

Start around the neckline with little circles, or dots, or stripes, or exes. Find a pattern you love to make, or a pattern you’d love to fill clothes with, and do it. Creating polka dots or stripes are so much easier than sewing on patches or re-dying. It’s a quick, easy, painless way to upcycle… unless you’re like me and want to spend three hours painting exes in between blocky, blue stripes.

If you’re not, and you don’t want to take on a project that big, than roughly sketching lines on a plain shirt with sharpie is an excellent alternative.

Whatever you decide to do, allowing yourself to do it will teach you a new technique that is only as hard as you make it. It might even evolve into how you treat consignment clothing or handmedowns.