So here is the completed project. Total investment $3 men's xxl flannel shirt on sale at Walmart, some 35 year old velveteen and a bit of frustration. I am still deciding whether I want to sew the cute pockets on.

I first knew I was in trouble after I cut off the sleeves and started to cut off the front and back yolks (following instructions). Think about it - what happens to the armholes when the yolk is cut off ? They get a lot smaller, right? I have no idea how the woman in the picture got hers on after she cut the yolk off unless her yolk was about 2" deep - and I had a really big shirt to work with. So I had to recut the armholes, which meant I had to rebind them - a little more work. After I finished the pleats, which was just tedious, I sewed the fronts to the back and realized that I had way too much material on the sides, so I also took the sides in - a little more work.

Almost done now and I started to realize that without some stabilization, the back neck was stretching and the edges would fray unacceptably if I left them unfinished with just a couple of rows of stitches. The whole neckline would probably withstand about 2 washings before it would be unacceptably frayed. So I surveyed my fabric inventory and found some very old velveteen to finish the edges off.

So now it is done. I am going to be careful before I try any of the other projects in the book. Too bad - I had been eyeing a 30 year purple sweater that I was going to try to felt into a purse.

So here it is