A fews ago Brien and I bought new Bedroom furniture at Ikea (on a date night, no less) After we put everything together and transferred our clothes from the old dresser (which I am currently refinishing, more about that later) I realized that I am a hoarder. Of the worst kind. I have been hoarding giant t-shirts!
Not cute little tees that I would throw on in the summer. T-shirts that really should not be worn in public unless you are making an emergency Home Depot run in the middle of a project. In the process of cleaning I must have found like 40 of these shirts! The sad part is that I really had a hard time trying to get rid of them for 3 reasons.
1. They are handy to throw on if you are doing housework, yard work etc. Sometimes I even wear to them bed. I know. Yikes. My poor husband.
2. I wear them on our morning runs. Again I know I should not be wearing these in public, but I figure, Hey, I am running, they only see me for a second and then I am gone! A down side is that they are huge, uncomfortable and too hot!
3. They hold some sentimental value. Like remember when I wore this school shirt on Fridays to show my spirit and from that time I did a 10k.
I found a way to keep my tees and jazz them up a little and make them a little more functional. Thanks again Pinterest!
Here is the original pin, it has a pretty good tutorial
All you need is some good sewing scissors and an old tee.
My first attempt at this went horribly awry because someone stole my sewing scissors! Either that or I lost them in the shuffle of redoing our bedroom. But either way, they are gone forever. I had to resort to using kitchen scissors and that did not go well! I ended up having to scrap the whole thing, buy a new pair of scissors and start over.
Here goes:
First lay out the tee nice and flat.
Old college dorm tee
Next cut off the neck, arms and bottom seams as close to the stitching as you can
Then go back and cut the shoulders, so the straps are a size that you want and curve out your cut the edge of the arm holes. In retrospect I would have made the straps much thinner and I will make sure to do that on my next t-shirt makeover.
Next flip the shirt over and make a deep "V" in the back. I drew mine on with chalk and see now that it is horribly crooked. Don't do this, make sure it's straight.
While I was busy chopping away, my happy helper stretched out the fabric that I cut off the bottom. You are going to need that in just a minute.
The next part in the tutorial pin is kind of confusing so I tried to do a better job of showing this. Wrap the fabric from the bottom through the arm holes and line them up where you want the back to start. I started mine at the top of the "V" I would probably put it down lower next time, as I feel a little like this shirt is strangling me, now that I have worn it.
After you have the fabric strip where you want it, tie a tight double knot. Then flip over the shirt to the front side to make sure everything is even. I should have done this, but did not. Now my tank is pretty crooked.
Next, start wrapping the fabric strip around in circles to tighten up the back.
When you are done wrapping or have run out of fabric, tie another tight double knot and trim off the extra fabric. Done! Now try that new tank on!
Now my morning runs are much cooler and more comfortable!
(PS. This was another shirt I did and it came out much better than my first 2!)
