Hints & Tips

Posts Tagged ‘downsize shirt’

Taking a sweat shirt from a large to a medium or small is usually a lot of work.  If you have the time.  The sides need to come in from under the arm down to the hem.  I would also be taking in from the underarm down the arm to the end of the sleeve.

Before you shorten the length from the bottom which would include taking the band off, cutting the excess off and replacing the band, you should fold the sleeve up on the shoulder to see if it needs to be raised.  Usually a sweat shirt will have a dropped shoulder, but it might be too low for a medium or small.  If you are going to take the sleeve out and raise it do this BEFORE you shorten the length.  In fact if the sleeve is too long, you may be able to just recut the sleeve head and re attach without having to undo the bottom of the band.

If the sweat shirt is too long, you may have to shorten the length.  It’s always good to have the body in the sweat shirt and pin to the persons body, rather than guessing, although a sweat shirt is not a fitting garment, so you can get away with altering down a few sizes by just taking in as discussed above.

HINT – If you do opt for raising at the sleeve head, don’t take the side of the sleeve in until you have repinned the cut sleeve head onto the garment.  You should take in the side seam from the underarm to the hem BEFORE you pin the sleeve back on.  the reason for this is that the sleeve gets narrower the closer it gets to the end of the sleeve, so it will automatically become narrower.

Happy sewing

Judith aka genie