Make an Off the Shoulder top from an old shirt!
I’ve been cleaning out my closet for the whole month of January and I’m using some of my old clothes for experiments! I love off the shoulder tops, they are really fun (especially in the summer), but can be really great in the winter too. I had this shirt that I’d kind of used out - but I felt like it still had some potential! And, yep, it was the perfect shirt to try my experiment. So I turned this old shirt into an off the shoulder top!
Start by gathering what you’ll need:
shirt / pin needles / sewing machine (unless you decide to sew by hand)
This was the original shirt.
Like I said, it needed a little bit of a new life. Start by putting it on inside-out to figure out where on your shoulders you want it to reach.
I placed a little piece of tape right where I knew I wanted it to hit.
From there I measured how far that was from the original seam.
And then went to the other sleeve and measured out the same amount, then marked it.
Next, I drew a line from one shoulder point to the other point. It doesn’t have to be exact, but try to keep it even.
Now, you cut! I cut above the line so that I could pin and sew ON the line later.
But before you do that, you have to first deal with the armpit area, lol. Go ahead and try it on inside out. You’ll notice that it’s REALLY loose right in the armpit area. That’s because of wear and also because they are meant to be looser there when they are in original t-shirt form. Gather the armpit areas and pinch. Decide how much fabric is excess and pin it.
You can’t tell much in the photo, but the pins are folding the excess fabric.
Now you want to sew it evenly all the way around. I used a seam guide to help me do that. Mark the line and sew all the way around, from the front, down through the pit and then coming up into the back. Do the same with the other side. Now try it on and see if it needs more taken in. If so, flip it again and take more in.
Finally, pin the whole top opening to create the hemline. Sew all the way around and voila!
It’s a simple way to repurpose an old shirt! It came out great and it’s just cool to experiment with clothes I otherwise would have just given away. With Valentine’s coming up, you may want to see what’s in your closet for experimenting 😉
