I first cut the sleeves off and tried it on inside out to
try to mark where I needed to bring in the seams. My original thinking was that
I would only have to alter the side seams and hem the sleeves.
I quickly realized the neck and shoulder lines would be way
out of place. The only solution I could think of was to turn it into a
sleeveless tank top.
Leaving the shirt inside out I laid it out flat, took one of my
tank tops that fit me well and used it as a pattern to mark the larger shirt
down the sides and across the shoulders. (I would recommend a marker, chalk or
pencil made for fabric, but in a pinch you can use what you have on hand, just
keep it small so it will be easy to hide with the stitches.) With a little maneuvering I was able to bring the shoulders down and the v neck up while still being able to line up the main neckline. I cut ¼’ outside
those lines and then pinned along those lines down the sides and across the
shoulders, leaving out the arm and neck openings. When I stitched this on my
sewing machine I stitched onto the pattern marks that I’d made. Then I turned in
the edges along the arm openings and hemmed them.
This was my resulting tank top. I love it and still wear it. Although it started as a long sleeved fall shirt, it's made from a cotton, t-shirt type material and is very cool and comfortable.
I did this refashion project about a year ago, before we decided to do diy videos and blogs. Because of this I do not have many photos of the project, so I tried to fill in the gaps. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments section.
