This Mama Makes Stuff T-shirt Refashion Tutorial

How many workout shirts do you have that have been relegated to the back of the drawer because, as a result of reaching your fitness goals, or just pure overuse, they no longer fit so you don’t wear them but you can’t quite give them up?

I’m guessing a bunch.

There are some fun and easy ways to reuse or repurpose t-shirts so throughout November Words to Sweat by will be featuring different ways to get your unused shirt stack back into the mix.

To kickoff the series I asked crafty woman extraordinaire, Carrie of This Mama Makes Stuff, to take an extra large Words to Sweat by shirt and refashion it into something more stylish then create a tutorial so you can too.

Here’s how to turn a too-large t-shirt into a cute fitted t-shirt with interesting shoulder details.

Try on your 0ver-sized t-shirt and pin the sides to fit your body. Also, mark how wide and deep you want your new neckline. You might need to enlist the help of a friend and/or a full length mirror for this step.

Draw and cut new neckline.

Cut off sleeves of t-shirt right at seam.

Cut off shirt hem. Cut another 1/2″ strip off bottom of shirt. Cut this tube into two pieces. These 1/2″strips of fabric will be your shoulder ties.

Turn the shirt inside out and mark where you have pinned the sides with an air erasable marking pen or for dark shirts, use my favorite marking tool – a sliver of soap.

Remove the pins and sew new side seams based on your markings.

Trim side seams.

(Please disregard the sewn hem in the picture. The sequence of steps was shifted to make it a more straightforward tutorial. The final shirt hem was left raw and you do no need to do anything to it after cutting your strips.)

Cut 2 x 2 1/2″ pieces of elastic. Using a shallow zig zag seam (a large one won’t catch your thin elastic), sew elastic across inside shoulder seam, stretching to fit as you sew.

Using a hot iron, steam shoulder seam elastic on right side of shirt.

Machine or hand tack ties to the outside edge of each shoulder seam.

Tie shoulder bows and knot ends.

Give the raw edges of your shirt a little tug. This will cause them to curl a bit and make any cutting irregularities not as noticeable.

Now put on your back-in-the-favorites-rotation t-shirt creation and enjoy!