In Progress: Metsie T-shirt Makeovers

Anyone who knows me knows that one of the things I like about going to watch the Mets at Shea is the free stuff they give away to the fans. We've gotten seat cushions (twice), sports bags, bobbleheads and other stuff, but most often we've gotten t-shirts.

The problem for me is that, although I love a free shirt, they give away one size only -- usually a generic "adult" size large or extra large. That's probably okay for some people, but I don't especially like to wear t-shirts that flap around my shoulders and make me look like a boy. And I *really* hate it when they take a team shirt and make it in pink, thinking that's more appealing to women. Pink is okay for little girls . . . but I want the blue and orange!

I was inspired last spring by a tutorial at stitch lounge/sew:urban on how to "refashion a man's tee into a boat neck top with cap sleeves and a fitted waistband". I chose to ignore the fact that they showed a Yankee t-shirt for their example.

Anyway, I don't really want a boat neck or cap sleeves . . . I just want a t-shirt that fits me. At first I thought I could buy a pattern and just use one of the big t-shirts to cut the pieces from, but then Penny snacked on my pattern piece and I wasn't too thrilled with the trial version.

So instead, I sort of followed the tutorial's instructions on cutting the shirt apart, but then I used a t-shirt that fits me well as a pattern to re-size the sleeves, neck and body. I re-assembled the pieces with the serger and the result was not too bad:


I've had this shirt since around 2000 or 2001; it wasn't a stadium giveaway - I bought it at The Sports Authority. It started out as a men's medium and the size wasn't so bad (sorry, forgot to take a before photo) but the fit was similar to this one:


Notice the size of the sleeves and the location of the shoulder seams, about 2 inches off my shoulder. In the remodeled shirt, I've been able to raise the shoulder seam so it's almost sitting on my shoulder and I've taken the excess width from around the arm in the sleeve. I didn't even have to re-hem the sleeves.

I also shortened the length of the remodeled shirt by a few inches.

I re-used the original neckband - just re-attached it using the serger.

I'm encouraged enough to continue working on the rest of my collection of oversized Mets t-shirts. And if all goes well, I'll post more specific details on how I make the alterations.

Until then, you can see some of the before photos in this Metsie T-shirt Makeover photo album
(there is a slideshow embedded in this post)

LET'S GO METS!



edited:
Nov-15-2018 Replace links to SewAmazin Flickr and Picasa albums; update with Google photo links

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