My husband always jokes that we can’t leave a store without me buying something for myself even if we are shopping for him. I deny it to him, but in reality, it really is true. Lately, whenever we go shirt shopping for him, I always want to buy the shirts we are looking at for me, I know weird. They have fun patterns and are always made out of the softest material. Plus, I like shirts to be a little big so I don't feel too exposed. But after buying them, I come home and they are too big, and usually end up being worn as comfy clothes around the house.
Well a couple of days ago, we were trying to find him some shirts for work, and I came across a bunch of super cute T-Shirts that were so soft, and had the cutest stripes running across them. I kept trying to get Wren to find some he liked, but he just wasn’t feeling it. He left and moved on to other things, and I just couldn’t force myself away. Needless to say, I ended up buying myself one with the intentions of altering it smaller which is exactly what I did, and I will show you how I did it right about.... NOW :)
Before:
Pretty cute still, in fact I debated whether to even make it smaller or not, but decided to go for it.
Okay, here’s what you do first. Turn the shirt inside out and lay it on a flat surface.
Grab a pencil, which BTW, why the H-E-double-hockey-stix can I NEVER find pencils around my place? That took me longer than this whole tutorial will take you. Anyway, I found one after searching for WAY too long.
Okay, where were we? Right, a pencil. Now look at the picture, and draw a line going from the bottom of the sleeve up to the top of the sleeve. I did mine about an inch in, you can do more or less depending on how tight you want it.
Once you are to the top of the sleeve like this
drag that pretty little pencil all the way to the very bottom of the shirt like so…..
....and continue onto the other side.
Now here’s where you are going to want to change things up from what I did the first time forcing me to un-pick for WAY too long. Instead of having the two lines come to a point like this….
....round it with the shape of the underarm of the shirt. If you don’t round it, it will be all sorts of weird bunching underneath the under arm and you'll think my tutorial is a dud. Which it was, but then it wasn't, and now my shirt is great!?
After you finish drawing the lines, pin the front of the shirt to the back of the shirt like this.
Make sure everything is straight and there are no ripples on the outer edge of the pins.
Pay particular attention to the end of the sleeves and make sure the front lines up perfectly with the back, otherwise you will sew it and the front won't line up with the back. Make sure to do the same thing with the bottom of the shirt as well. For example don’t do this….
But do this….
Once you have it all nicely pinned like so...
...take it to the sewing machine
Don't back stitch at first just to make sure you like how it fits. Un-picking on this material is super difficult because it's hard to differentiate your thread from the shirt's thread. I put a hole in my precious new shirt doing this so it's just better to wait and back stitch after you know it fits well.
Okay what I did is line the foot up with the pencil line and moved my needle as far right as it would go. This will put your seam as close as it can be to the pencil line while still being able to use the foot as a guide. On the other side, you will do just the opposite, putting your needle as far left as it will go and the pencil line will be to the left of the foot. Does this make sense? The pictures will explain it. If you already sew, this is mumbo jumbo for you, and in FACT, if you already sew, you don't need this tutorial because that's how easy this is!
Okay, once you have sewed everything, it should look something like this.
Turn it right side out, and if you are happy with how it fits, turn it inside out again and go back in and back stitch the ends of each seam to ensure it will stay.
Once you have done this and are FOR SURE happy with everything, cut right outside of the seam line like so....
...continue doing this all the way up the shirt and down to the end of the sleeve.
Don't worry about cutting a perfect line because no one will see it, it's on the inside :)
And wala, simple as that!
Heyyyaaaa, sorry WINDY day!
It fits just right in and the wrong places... catch my drift?
I think it turned out pretty dang cute. I like how the sleeves are form fitting, but a little bit longer than a normal t-shirt. In fact, this is my favorite length of sleeve and I got it with this shirt. This is another plus to buying guys' shirts and taking them in, you can always get this length of sleeve if that's what you dig :)
And you know what you can do with the pieces that you cut off? You guessed it... make a headband like this....
.....or bracelets like this!
I thought it was cute to throw a couple bangles on with them.
C'mon guys, RECYCLE! :)
I hope you liked the tutorial.
Now ONE more little snippet to wrap up the longest post in the whole entire world....
Our friend Eric was sayin to me last night that I really needed to add video, so there you are! VIDEO! That right there was for you Eric! J Many more to come….
Now I'm onto steal some of my husband's shirts... Shhh, don't tell! He'll never miss em....
HAPPY HAPPY GLORIOUS WONDERFUL FRIDAY TO YOU!
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