Shrinking a Tee

In my opinion, being able to make a tee smaller is one of the most important sewing skills to know. I usually avoid any shirts with pictures or words on them like the plague because I think it's ridiculously stupid to PAY a company to let you advertise for them for FREE. However, I think the graphics on this shirt are cool, so I might wear it for a workout shirt. I've botched a few shirts trying to figure out how to shrink them, but I think I finally have it down. And luckily, it's pretty easy. Here's how.

1. Cut off the sleeves, making sure they're even. I always cut on the shirt side of the seams.

2. Trim the space between the neckline and the edge of the shoulder to make the shoulder seam sit higher. 3. Cut the sleeves to the size you want them to be. Warning! Do NOT over cut. On my first few shirts, I made the sleeves way to small, because it's hard to judge the size accurately. And then I promptly got rid of my newly sewn shirts, because when the sleeve is hugging your armpit it shows every drop of sweat. Too much information? Sorry. I'm nothing if not overly honest.

4. Put the sleeve inside of the armhole, making sure they match up. For this one, the armhole part was too big for the sleeve, so I marked the size it needed to be, then tightened up the shirt so the armhole was smaller. Make sure the sleeve is right-side out inside the hole. You can look on the inside of the shirt to be certain it will be correct when you flip the shirt right-side out.

5. Sew the armholes and you're done!

Here are some more refashions!
Or if DIY is more your thing here they are as well.