Not Your Grandma's Shirt Refashion

(Disclaimer- I took these pictures with crappy lighting, and with my iPhone. They aren't the best. Don't judge me too harshly.)

My sweet Grandma has excellent taste in clothing. She is always dressed so fashionably, that I envy her on occasion. I do have to admit, she does have a good 60+ years on me, so there's that.

She sent me this shirt that she no longer wanted.

I love red and white together. Always have, always will. So I kinda did that embarrassing giddy screech girls do when they're super excited. Don't deny it, ladies. I won't believe you. 

The shirt is comfy and soft, but it drowned me. The sleeves made me look like I had ginormous bat wings. Not a pretty sight. So I decided I would slim this puppy down into something super cute to wear. 

First I cut the sleeves off from the shirt. 

What I did next was put my shirt on inside out. Then I pinned the shirt where I wanted to take it in. I ended up taking in about 3 inches, leaving 1/2 inch to 1 inch for a seam allowance. After that I pinned the sides together, lined up the tiny peaks where the armhole bottom would be, and cut the same shape on the opposite side of the shirt. Pin, and sew just like the first side. 

This is what mine looked like after I sewed both sides. I made it so it would be form fitting until the bottom of my shoulder blades, and then I fanned it out a little at the bottom, so the shirt wasn't super tight. 

 For the sleeves, I kinda lucked out. The original sleeves had these perfect little hems, and let's be honest, I was too lazy to do my own hemming, so I cut off the ends of the sleeves, about 1/2 inch above the original hem line. They fit perfectly with the new armholes. Blondie for the win! Pin them to your shirt, sew them on, and finish off all the edges. 

(Sorry for the bad photo. iPhones can only do so much.)

This is what the shirt looks like now! Its a huge improvement over the old shirt. I left the neckline as it was, because I was lazy and didn't want to change it. Sometimes being lazy is a good thing. This whole project took me about 30 minutes. I'll be wearing this to Thanksgiving Dinner this week, and maybe on Christmas too. 

Stay tuned next week, because I have the black and white version of this shirt that I am turning into a skirt! I would post it this week, but there's Thanksgiving, work, and my birthday is on Saturday. I'll finally be out of my teens! 

Happy Thanksgiving!