Saturday, November 8, 2014

T-Shirt Re-Do

Do you get t-shirts that are over sized, or just don't give you the fit that you want?  Do you wear them, or do you just stuff them in the back of the closet.  I always tend to stuff mine in the back of my closet for frumpy days.  Because we all have frumpy day's right!?  But sometimes there are those t-shirts that I just love, and I want to wear them not feeling frumpy.

I have had this shirt for 6 months now, and never worn it!  I love this shirt, I worked hard for it, and I thought I should show it off.  But every time I put it on, it didn't stay on, I changed into something that looked better.  If you want to find out what I did to win this shirt, send me a message, you can win it too!

So I made a quick tutorial on how to re-fashion your over sized t-shirts to a regular size.  This is a quick easy job.  No serger needed.  The fabric is knit, and it won't fray.  So anyone can do this!  It took me an hour to get mine done.  I am putting this together quickly, so if you have any questions send me an email or leave a comment below.  Some of the pictures are flipped sideways, and messy looking.  Sorry for that.  I was excited to wear my shirt!


TAKING THE SHIRT APART
 1. Because my shirt wasn't to over sized, I needed to take out the hem, so I had plenty of fabric to work with.  If you can see in the second picture, I have placed one of my favorite shirts over the top to use as a guide.  See step 2 to decide of this is necessary for you to do with your shirt.


2. Cut 2" off the bottom of the shirt.  Make sure the hem is not in this.  That is why I picked my hem out. my shirt was not long enough.  This strip will be used later for the neckline.

3. Cut the sleeve out of the arm hole.  Make sure to take the whole seam out.

4.  I have my favorite sleeve laying over the top of the shirt for a guide again.  To keep the original hem, lay the guide shirt over top with the hem's matching up, and the top of the sleeve matching up.

5. This is where it may look confusing.  You are more than welcome to email me with any questions.  I needed to use the seamline of the guide shirt on my sleeve.  So I folded the shirt out of the way, and cut the excess sleeve off that I didn't need.  If you look at the second picture here, it helps pull the idea together.  Keep in mind using the guide shirt, you will need to remember to add enough for your seam allowance, or your shirt may become too tight!


6.  Again I put the guide shirt over top of the shirt.  Notice that I have folded both shirts in half so the side seams are together.  I wanted to make sure they were the same on both sides, so I would recommend doing this for you.  Then cut.


7.  Now the shoulders.  I trimmed off about 3/4" on the top and curved it down to the arm pit.

8.  Still working on the shoulders.  The front of your body and the back of your body are not the same, so I wanted to make a little less ease for the front of the arm hole.  So only to the front of the shirt, I cut a little more of an angle.

9. Neckline.  Fold the shirt in half, having the center front and center back of the shirt be the fold line.  Cut the neckline off of your shirt, unless you want to keep it the same.  I wanted a v neck shirt, so I cut a slight v at the front of the shirt.

PUTTING THE SHIRT BACK TOGETHER!
10. Sew the sleeves into the arm holes with right sides together.

11.  Sew the side seams with right sides together.

12. Neckline.  Measure the neckline of the shirt.  Cut the trim piece you cut off on the beginning to the same length.


13. With right sides together, sew the short ends together.

14. Fold the trim in half with wrong sides together.

15.  With the right sides of the trim and the right side of the shirt, sew together.

16.  If you chose to sew a v neck also.  Sew at an angle on the trim piece down into the seam of the v.

17. Hem the shirt.  I chose to use a double needle.  When sewing with knit, you will need a double needle if you do not want your thread to bread every time you put your shirt on.  If you do not have a double needle go to this link for help with sewing knit fabrics - http://mytaylormade.blogspot.com/2013/06/sewing-with-knit-fabrics-how-to.html

18. Stitch around the neckline to give the professional look.  Again, I used the double needle.

WEAR AND ENJOY!  YOU DID FABULOUS!  Now you can show off your figure instead of feeling frumpy!  Go YOU!  I want to know how your shirt turned out, email me a picture, or post it below.
 If you want to find out how to win this shirt too, leave me a comment or send me an email!



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5 comments:

Unknown said...

Love it! Might need to alter some work shirts

adaynasmile said...

Great tutorial! Now if I could just figure out how to increase my fave shirts for my large bust. ..

adaynasmile said...

Great tutorial! Now if I could just figure out how to increase my fave shirts for my large bust. ..

adaynasmile said...

Great tutorial! Now if I could just figure out how to increase my fave shirts for my large bust. ..

Nathaniel and Julie Clinger said...

Great how to. Anxious to try.