Take in a shirt to make it smaller - PEP BB textiles.straw.repair.shirtsmall

Quick question... does this PEP task also include hemming shirts so they're shorter? My hubbie has a few work shirts that are too long.

I think hemming is a different badge.  

Ok thanks. I have blouses I need to take in, but hubbies work shirt needs to get done sooner. :-)

Does "shirt" imply it must have sleeves? My friend gave me a lovely cotton sleeveless tunic with buttons down the front, but two of me would fit inside. I was thinking the other day that it would be nice to have this summer, and getting a BB for figuring out how I'll manage to fix it would be a motivating bonus!

Jay Angler wrote:Does "shirt" imply it must have sleeves? My friend gave me a lovely cotton sleeveless tunic with buttons down the front, but two of me would fit inside. I was thinking the other day that it would be nice to have this summer, and getting a BB for figuring out how I'll manage to fix it would be a motivating bonus!

I feel the goal of this is to take a top (as opposed to bottoms - shorts, pants, trousers, slacks, skirt) and make it smaller widthwise.

I could see a sleeveless tunic fitting into this.  

I made my husband a shirt from a twin bed sheet I got at a thrift store. I used a pattern and it was my first time making a shirt. He kept insisting he was an XL, but what I learned was he is actually an L but the L shirts are usually too short for him.

The shirt before alteration. I marked where his shoulders were with a little white fabric pencil.


I also laid out a shirt that fit him better on top of it and marked where that sat. I ended up cutting off about 2.5 inches on each side.


I used a seam ripper to undo the side seams and I took off the sleeves.


The disassembled shirt.


For the first cut, I pinned the top and bottom together and I cut about 3/4 inch outside of the pins for a seam allowance.


I took the cut off pieces from one side and overlaid them on the other side and used that to show me where to cut. Trying to keep everything flat and together was a challenge and I did not do it as perfectly as I would have liked.


I sewed the sleeves about an inch in from where the existing seam was and then cut it. I also cut off some of the armpit side of the sleeve and I arbitrarily just cut along where the stitching used to be (about 3/4 inch) to make the sleeves a little shorter.


I used clips to piece the whole thing together.


After sewing, it fits way better! The pockets are still a little lower than I would like so I'll move those next, but at least the shirt is actually fitting him now.