More Morphed T-Shirt Pictures and a Very Productive Weekend

It appears I'm sewing and posting like crazy. Probably to make up for lost time in October. It feels absolutely wonderful to be sewing again. I'm in the mood to re-design t-shirts. I had a pile of them sitting in my sewing room waiting for action. Now, they are done and as a result I'm also getting back a bit of sewing space.

In my previous re-design t-shirt post, I had forgotten to show what the Men's XL t-shirts look like on me. Well, I remembered to take some "before" pictures. First up, is a really cool VA Tech t-shirt (okay...the backside logo is really neat).


As you can see, it makes a great nightshirt, except, I'm not a nightshirt kind of person. So, this one got a re-design...


...into something that looks like this.



I bought this "Wild by Nature" t-shirt when I was in Seattle. Funny, I bought the same size for my DH...XL.


Now, it fits me to a "T".


I was recently asked a really good question...why don't I just buy a Men's size Medium? Well, I could, but a Medium would be too narrow in the hips for me. The XLarge size gives me some room to place my pattern pieces. A Large size would be cutting it too close. Plus I have to allow for shrinkage in the washer/dryer.

So, this takes less than an hour to re-design a t-shirt...from cutting it apart to sewing the bottom hem.

Re-Designing Men's XL T-Shirt to Fit Me

I was definitely in the mood to sew today. I have been collecting Men's XL t-shirts in the hopes of being able to re-design/cut down to fit me.





So, I took one of my DH's discarded t-shirts and morphed it into a Kwik Sew 2900 t-shirt...View C. My version came out shorter.

Here's the steps I took:

1) I cut up the sides of the t-shirt:



2) I carefully cut around the sleeve and sleeve cap seams
3) I left the ribbed neckline alone and the existing shoulder seams
4) I folded the t-shirt lengthwise, matching the shoulders and neckline and bottom hems.

5) I took my KS pattern pieces front and back and placed the pattern pieces on the fold of the t-shirt:


6) I carefully cut out the front and back. Notice the ribbed knit neckline and shoulder seams are still intact:



7) For the sleeves, I placed the KS sleeve pattern over each sleeve and cut the new piece out:


Here's a picture of the before (top sleeve) and after (bottom) for the sleeve. Notice the nicer sleeve cap of the bottom sleeve and the sleeve hem is still intact:


8) I serged the new sleeves flat into the new t-shirt
9) I serged the sides of the new t-shirt from the underarm of the sleeve to the side for the left side and the right side.
10) Hem the new t-shirt.

Since the typical RTW logo t-shirts have very little stretch, I ended up tracing a Medium in this KS pattern. I shortened the pattern length at the bottom by 2 inches. I usually use a size Small when the knit fabric has quite a bit of stretch.

Here I am modeling my new RTW t-shirt. Notice I have kept the vendor's logos (front and back) where they should be:



DH was quite impressed with the outcome and how quickly it was sewn. He asked me if I had taken a "before" picture of the XL t-shirt on me. Well, I forgot. I was caught up in my sewing mood that I forgot. DH has offered to dig up another XL t-shirt from the same vendor, but in a different color. I will be back to post what the before t-shirt looked like on me so you can get an idea of the difference in size.

I'm off to cut up some more XL t-shirts, including one from my recent trip to Seattle.