Resizing an Oversized T-Shirt

Eric and I ordered custom t-shirts for our Halloween costumes.  Unfortunately, to get one that resembled something close to a "fit" for me would have cost an exhorbitant amount of money, so I went with a men's medium and, in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, I would have to "make it work!"

It came and as I expected it was not cute.  It was a rectangle with arms.

Here's how I "made it work."

Find a shirt that has a fit that you like.  Turn your overly large, not cute shirt inside out, iron both shirts flat and fold them in half.  Make sure you're careful about the alignment of the shirt while ironing and folding.  My huge shirt was too long so I cut about two inches off the bottom in a straight line.  Place your cute shirt (for our purposes we'll call it your gray shirt) on top of your not so cute shirt (your black shirt).

I know I could use a new ironing board cover.

Mark a line on your black shirt along the edge of your gray shirt.  Repeat on the other side and unfold your shirts, makeing sure to keep the edges aligned.  You'll need to think about how to handle the sleeves.  You COULD remove them, resize them and reattatch them.  I just arched the line from the esisting sleeve of the black shirt to edge of the gray shirt.

If you don't have a sewing machine, hand stitch along the line.  If you have a sewing machine that's even better!

Cut the excess material about a 1/4 inch from the new seam.

Turn it rightside out and now you have a shirt that fits better!

Pay no mind to the cat's tail

I still wasn't happy with it.  I'm not a huge fan of crew necks and I wanted shorter sleeves so I turned it back inside out and folded it (CAREFULLY) in half again.  I cut a double v neck in the top and trimmed about 1 1/2 inches from the sleeves.

And there you have it!  A much cuter t-shirt!


And for shits and giggles, here are some Halloween pics.