terriko

Like most tech women, I get a lot of t-shirts that look horrible on me. I've been meaning to learn to do t-shirt surgery for ages, and the bright green shirt I got yesterday at the linux symposium inspired me enough to actually give it a go!

Sorry about the terrible phone pictures. I didn't want to spend too much time on this, and doing proper photos probably would have doubled the time it took! Seriously, this was a pretty quick hack.

OLS t-shirt surgery: before
by Terriko.

OLS t-shirt surgery: after
by Terriko.

In short, what I did was:

Take in the sides so it was actually the right width for me. This tutorial was very helpful, but basically you just measure up against a shirt that fits you properly and don't forget to leave some for seam allowances. I found that the men's/unisex shirt I was using had a little less give to it than the women's cut shirt I used as a template, so I had to take it out again a little after trying it on.
Switch to a v-neck. I was inspired by this tutorial, but I haven't gotten around to putting the ribbon I have on it 'cause once I got the base done I kinda liked it as was. However, I used black thread on the assumption that it'd be covered (and because I don't own bright green thread) so it's not as clean as it could be.
Shorten the sleeves, again from the first tutorial. It was pretty nice as a tank-top, actually, but I wanted to try the sleeves for practice and I can always take them off later. I didn't cut the top of the shirt in as much as I should have, but as with the neckline I'm kinda entertained by the results and am leaving them as-is for now. I think it'd be even better if I replaced the sleeves with something lighter... maybe next time I do t-shirt surgery I will!
I probably should shorten the shirt, as it's kinda mini-dress length on me, but I haven't bothered yet 'cause I didn't feel like dealing with a hemline.

It really didn't take very long at all, and now I have a usable and much more comfortable shirt. Woo!