hello everybody and welcome to Catherine Sews today I'm gonna share with you what I think is
the best way to resize t-shirts I try to avoid buying fast fashion there's a lot of problems
in the global fashion industry that I just don't want to participate in so most of the
shopping that I do comes from either small local companies or secondhand one of the things I like
to do most is to go to the thrift store find a treasure you come home and redesign and remake
it into something that's just perfect for me but if you don't know how to sew your options in a
thrift store are really limited because there's only one of each item so if it doesn't fit you
properly it's gonna end up being somebody else's treasure but if you do know how to sew you can
take that home resize it and make it just perfect for you right now thrift stores are still closed
so I can't do a thrift flip even though I'm dying to do one one thing I can do is to teach you one
good basic skill and that's to take a big t-shirt that maybe isn't so flattering and turn it into
something cute for yourself so go raid your husband's closet or your dad's closet find a
really big t-shirt and then find a t-shirt that does fit you well so that we can use that as a
template you're also gonna need some matching thread sewing machine and if you have a serger
that would be great too one other thing you're gonna need is something to draw on your fabric
with I'm gonna use Taylor's wax cuz it works really nicely on knitted fabrics but you could
use tailors chalk or if all you've got is a pencil that would be fine too but just turn your t-shirt
inside out just to make sure you don't make a mark that it doesn't come out so I found this kind of
fun spider-man t-shirt but it's so unflattering I just don't feel good in it I don't feel like
I have any style or ... I just don't like it part of the problem is this shoulder is dropping right
down like that and that just I just don't like that that looks sloppy so much fabric under here
the sleeves are this weird awkward length and too wide and this is kind of giant I have to admit I
did sleep in this shirt a few times and that was alright but if I want to go public in this shirt
I gotta fix this I also don't like how chokey the neck is and I'm gonna show you also a nice way to
drop that neck a little bit to make that a little bit more comfortable and more flattering - all
right so stick around grab your t-shirts and let me show you how to do this so this is the t-shirt
I'm gonna use as my template or my pattern I love David Bowie when I bought this David Bowie t-shirt
it looked a lot like that spider-man t-shirt it was really big in the shoulder and it had
the big sleeves and too big here and so I used a different t-shirt that I like the fit of and
I cut this one down to just be a little bit more flattering in fact this t-shirt also was really
big when I bought it this is from a Janelle Monae concert and I just love her and I love her fashion
and I love this T-shirt I thought that was pretty cool but it also had that just big fit everywhere
so I've also done this one it's got the longer sleeve which I kept three-quarter and I cut it
off just below the name of the tour the dirty computer tour and so I just feel a lot better
in it okay let's get started so any time you're working with a symmetrical garment I want you
to fold that garment in half right that way we can make sure both sides are the same so
you're gonna fold your big t-shirt in half and you'll fold your t-shirt that fits in half good
you're gonna lay down the big one and have the smaller on top of it don't cut off the sleeves
of the t-shirt yet we'll be doing that after but I'm gonna show you there's some times where you
you don't want to cut it off that sleeve first okay okay so this t-shirt is all laid out nice
and smooth and then the smaller one goes on top also fold it in half and on top like that
you want to line it up here at the shoulder seam you want to line up those two center front folds
as well and just get it all smoothed out this right here is why we don't cut off the sleeve
first can you see on this one can you see that little seam there that's because when I did this
one the curve of the armhole extended into the sleeve a little bit there you know what that is
perfectly okay but if we had cut off the sleeve and couldn't get that full curve of the armhole
it I've been too tight under my arms I'm gonna start tracing around my t-shirt I'm gonna leave
a seam allowance with from this curve so I'm going to flip this sleeve back and just bring that curve
out to the edge there and I'm gonna trace about a finger width out from the edge and then my curve
comes out there and here good so here I'm making it just at the sleeve there but sometimes as I
say if this bigger t-shirt isn't that much bigger ... your point goes out into that sleeve and you
do end up with that tiny little seam there which there it is again on this side it's no problem at
all to have that there and it gives you that extra comfort of having it big enough under the arm come
down I like to have mine a little bit bigger on the bottom end I'm gonna leave about an inch hem
and if you want to use a ruler to mark your inch you can but straight across like that sometimes
I keep this bottom edge if I want to really change the neckline and make it a deeper V I'll sometimes
use this bottom edge here but today I'm not going to do that I'm just going to keep it right like
that so we'll take this t-shirt away now and I'm going to cut on that wax line [Music] so
the body is cut now the sleeve make sure those are all lined up nicely and we're going to use
that original hem so I'll take my sleeve on my smaller shirt I don't mind if this one's a
little bit longer maybe this one this little cap sleeve is a little too short now but I'm
gonna put the folds right and together and I just need to trace one sleeve trace there and then I'm
going to flip the t-shirt back to just reveal underneath here the curved line in the sleeve
bring that right up to the edge of your fold and then again that little bit of seam allowance
sticking out here you can bring this back and make sure I haven't shifted anything around okay
good okay couple things I want to show you about what makes a good sleeve shape has to
be a right angle here if you're going up or down you're gonna have a point or a V
at the top of your sleeve a right angle there and then it comes out and flattens
out toward this area right all right cut I'm gonna just double check again
that those are all nicely lined up together because I want my two sleeves the same look
at the difference between the sleeves on this shirt that's the original shirt and
the two sleeves are totally different oh well they'll end up being the same after I cut them
so there are my pieces cut and you can see that's gonna go in there together basically what we did
is we removed a whole bunch of fabric there and down the side the first thing I'm going
to do for sewing is open my t-shirt up like this so that the curve of the armhole is curving up
like that I'm going to take the two sleeves and snip a tiny notch right at the fold there please
make it small just like that no bigger or else you'll end up with a hole later the sleeve is
going right side down the t-shirts right side up and that little notch just going to go right
to that seam I'm breaking my own rules here in my video about getting started on your serger
I said no pins should ever go to the serger but I have to break that rule a little bit I'm gonna
take three pins and then the corner of the sleeve comes to the corner of the armhole there and pin
and the other corner there good so three pins in each sleeve should be good and you can see those
edges are gonna come together I'm gonna Serge those edges together that's gonna fit nicely
so I have to be very cautious with these pins so before I even start sewing I'm taking that first
pin out nunchuck your presser foot and get it under there good now just organize your layers
make sure your two edges are together nice and even ... on knits they want to curl they have to
uncurl them and make sure your edges are together organize as you go just sew a little bit at a time
[Music] pins out well in advance because it's a knit I don't have to so first I can just search
but of course if you don't have a serger you can just sew and zigzag same on the other side
[Music] so those sleeves are searched on and now I'm going to serge the side seams
together on the video about getting started on your serger I showed a cool trick for the ends
here and I'm just going to do that again too so I'm gonna do this without any pins so that
I try to stick to my own rules I'm gonna start at that finished edge but I don't want to have
that tail of serging where I have to cut it off and it unravels especially since I'm not sewing
first so I'm gonna ... I'm going to be starting upside down I'm gonna come this way and then flip
it and then go and do the rest of the way so let me show you that okay this is the finished
edges I'm getting them nicely lined up but I'm gonna start around that seem similar starting
around where the seam is and I'm surging toward the finished edge and I'm gonna serge until the
needles clear the fabric here just barely cleared that should do okay now I lift up the presser foot
wiggle disengage that off the ends and flip that around and then I'm getting it back underneath
and put the presser foot down so the end is already surged I'm coming in probably about
half an inch and then I just have to line up my edges down here and go the whole rest of the way
because I don't want to have pins Here I am putting the two bottom
corners together pinching that and then finding about the halfway point here and
pinching that so I've got two matching points that I would normally pin but I
don't like to have pins at the serger so I'm just gonna hold those and go
I just did one edge and look the bottom edge there is nicely finished with no
chain of serging coming off the end because of that doubling back technique it's kind of
good right so this one edge is done I haven't done the other side because I'm gonna serge or
right across the whole bottom edge it's just easier to do it when it's straight rather than
when it's already in a circle so I'm going to do the bottom edge and then I'll put the other
two sides together and serge those okay nudging the presser foot up to get that bottom edge in
[Music] so that bottom edge is done and now the other side again I'm gonna put
the two edges of the sleeves together matching up that finished edge but I'm
gonna start a couple inches up from there come toward the finished edge and then flip
good till the needles have just cleared the fabric so I lift up disengage flip back and come back the
other way get it under there and above well I think the threads can kind of stretch till
about half an inch past that prevents you from having like a little loop of thread at the end
so I'm just trying it on before I turn up the bottom hem and I just love this so much more am
i glad I left that little extra length in the sleeve I think that's just perfect um the neck
isn't but I do want to show you how you can drop the neck just a little bit pretty easily
okay to drop the neck I like to unpick this cover seam that's going here see it's got two
lines of sewing there serging on the back that is cover stitching all right I'm going to start with
these little scissors see how I can wiggle the scissors just under there be careful of course
you're not cutting the t-shirt but just snip that don't go right up into this back seam here because
if that's it's more of a headache and we're not changing the back just the front so Wiggle
your scissors in under that make sure you're not cutting the t-shirt and just snip your way [Music]
on this side this one line of stitching will just pop right out that's good the top thread is also
pulling out easily too so now all we're left with is this little serging it's only a three
thread Serge I don't want to lose any fabric from the neckband here so I'm just running my
scissors along this way and snipping the serging that way [Music] now look at that oh that's nice
that's satisfying good oh yes there we go that's what we're looking for okay so now I want to be
able to drop this neck a little bit but it is symmetrical I want it to end up being symmetrical
so I'm bringing the two shoulder seams together and getting that in half nice and even now I'm
going to be cutting down just about an inch we're going to be using the neck band again so I can
stretch that to be about like there I can't make a big big difference if I want to reuse the same
neck band but I can go about an inch lower so again like the sleeve we want a right angle
here because I don't want to V or a point and I'm going to blend that right into here and connect
good awesome let's cut see how this edge is curling I want to uncurl that so I can
blend out to the edge again okay so now I'm going to be back at the serger serging that
neck band back on perfect what I'm trying to do here is stretch that neck band to
make it fit my new neck line and then just grabbing it in two places that I can that I
can hold instead of having pins up my serger I'm trying not to Serge much off of the edge at all
[Music]
for the bottom hem I'm just turning up an inch but you know what I just eyeballed it when I drew the
inch so I can just eyeball it when I'm pressing too this t-shirt is 100% cotton so I'm gonna use
cotton setting on my iron and I like to have water in the iron for some steam all the way around
OK sewing that bottom can just get your serged edge under your needle arrange a little bit I
want to see where the fold line is laying and it's laying right on that 1 inch so that's gonna be
my guideline for the whole way around and that's how I'm gonna be able to sew it straight [Music]
so there we go isn't that just so much better like I feel like I could actually wear this outside
and that might even be my favorite t-shirt I'm pretty happy with that the shoulder sits
nicely the sling is good it's not too tight under the arms and the length is good I like
it so that's it for today's video I hope you have a good time with that I hope you found a
t-shirt to give some new life and some new love and hope you learned some good skills my name
is Catherine and I can't wait to sew with you again So go ahead and make my day and subscribe
thank you