After I tracked down the shirt to remodel for July’s Craft Challenge, which was hiding in the “remodel or eliminate” bag in the closet (clever), I had to decide what to do with it. It was just about the right size (if boxy, and with that unpleasantly small neck opening) so I couldn’t do anything that required extra fabric (I had thought at first that I could perhaps turn it into a swimsuit coverup, but it didn’t have enough coverage). I trolled through Pinterest boards and other compendia linked from Sewing Tidbits and came across a tutorial on turning a crew neck t-shirt into a V-neck.
That sounded like a good place to start. Actually, changing the color sounded like a better place to start – I figured if I ever planned to dye it, it would be better to do so at the beginning. I don’t have a before-before picture, but you can imagine the standard t-shirt heather gray.
To obtain material for the new collar, I shortened the shirt, which helped with fit as well. The plan was to change the collar and then reassess fit before re-hemming the bottom, and as I expected the v-neck helped the fit substantially – so much so that all I did afterward was re-hem. I took 4.25″ off the bottom, in addition to the 1.5″ or so that came off when I removed the hem to make the collar.
For the collar attachment I used a narrow, short zigzag, but I topstitched with a straight stitch. For the hem I dug out my trusty double needle. The end product looks a little boxy on the hanger, but loose and comfortable on me.
