Anyone watch Community? We love that show. On this episode, I was seriously laughing so hard…I was crying! Love it. Anyway, amidst all the chaos of the alternate realities, I really liked Britta’s shirt, so I found a picture and pinned for a future time when I felt inspired. Which is now.
I have 3 shirts that I bought once upon a time because they were long enough for my freakishly long torso. Seriously. My BF in high school was a good 6” taller than me, and yet our hip to shoulder bone measurement was the exact same. Short stubby legs with a freakishly long torso. That’s how I describe myself in my dating ad. Anyway, these shirts were great, so I had bought 3, and now, they just aren’t cutting. They aren’t as long as I remember, so I decided to fix that.
Started off pinning the bottoms so they were nice and lined up.
Figured out about where I wanted the stripe-y thing to go.
And tried laying the shirt flat. You see how it doesn’t want to be flat? Yeah, that’s called a badly made shirt not cut on the grain/bias correctly. It makes it sit all funny, and all 3 shirts had that problem. So I smoothed it where I wanted to cut as best as I could.
And sliced it in half. Diagonally.
Then laid it on the other shirt and lined up sides as best as I could to get the line angles the same. And cut.
And did it on the bottom part of my stripe. Then I laid it all out to make sure it would work.
I found the middles and side seams of all my pieces and marked them.
Then, I pinned it so my side seams/middles were matching, as best as I could, (right sides together!!)
and sewed it together, with a 1/4” seam allowance. That was just my preference, you do what you’re comfortable with, but then cut the seams down to about 1/4”.
Now, turn it inside out, and press your seams open.
I liked the look of stitching on the outside, so I pulled out my double needle, and threaded each needle with a matching thread for my shirt.
And then sewed on the outside, lining up the seam with the middle of the presser foot.
Just to compare, the top seam doesn’t have any top stitching (that’s what the double needle on the outside is called…It’s on top/outside of the garment), and the bottom line does.
One thing I learned while sewing is to make sure not to do a drastic point on the side seams, cuz it will look funky and lumpy when you finish.
This is just before I fixed it. It had a bit of a weird bulge when I tried it on.
Don’t mind the awkward cell phone pictures. I actually wore this shirt Saturday (and got my neck fried outside) while working on a project that I’ll show you soon! But I forgot to get a picture…
Using the rest of the lighter blue, I added a strip of green to the middle, but it’s not as long, so I’m going to figure out some way to add more length to it. More to come!
Notice I did the stripe so it was wider on one end then the other? Just for funzies.
So do you have any shirts you’re going to chop up now? Are you going to pay more attention to the clothes they’re wearing when you watch TV/movies?:)
Linking up to Tatertots & Jello
I Heart Naptime
Skip to My Lou
House of Hepworths
Brassy Apple
Love the shirts!!
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