Men's T-shirts are NOT meant for girls!

When I was little I was a gymnast. I was on the team and we went to a lot of gymnastic meets. At every one my parents would buy me a t-shirt. And they were great for the gym. I wore them all the time to gymnastics practice (which was a substantial amount of time: 4 nights a week for 3 hours). When I got to be a teenager big, baggy t-shirts were no longer my thing. And they still aren't. I like a fitted t-shirt - a girl's t-shirt.

Unfortunately, I still have some regular t-shirts. I've gotten them from conferences, from friends or family from vacations, or I've picked them up because they were the only kind of t-shirt available where I was and wanted a souvenir. With my addiction to Pinterest I've seen lots of ideas of how to transform those baggy men's t-shirts into something I might actually wear.

Since I happen to have 2 of these t-shirts I decided to try out the method I found here by Mrs. Dotson. It's a no-sew so I didn't have to fish my sewing machine out of the mess that is my den right now.

Here's the t-shirt I decided to experiment with

I turned the red t-shirt inside out. Then I brought out one of my favorite shirts and laid it on top of the t-shirt I was modifying. Since I was going to be tying knots with the fabric I drew chalk lines about an inch and a half larger than my favorite shirt.

Then I cut along the chalk lines, as well as along the bottom of the red t-shirt to make it shorter.

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with the sleeves. They are kind of long and way too wide but I really didn't want to hem them so I didn't want to cut them. I decided to continue the cut of the curve into the sleeve and just make the shirt have sleeves that reached my elbows.

Here's what it looks like after it's all cut up:

At this point you could just sew a hem all along the cuts. That's what I'm planning to do with the other shirt I have like this. For the no-sew method though out come the scissors.

Make small cuts all the way up the cut sides continuing on to the sleeves as well. Once all of the cuts are made comes the tedious task of knotting each pair of cut fringe.

I suppose you could put the fringe on the outside of the shirt but I liked the way Mrs. Dotson's looked being on the inside. I don't quite think I could pull off the exposed fringe. :)

In the end, I'm pretty happy. I definitely would like to use the sewing machine next time but for now this works. I like to wear a tank under my t-shirts anyway so the little holes are not a problem. I also really like the length of the sleeves.

Now it almost looks like a girls shirt on the hangar too!

Finally a Local 77 t-shirt that looks like it was made for a girl! Think I'll wear it to the Hall on Friday.