Lone Star Tee Refashion

So the hubbs kept asking me to find him muscle shirts. Things he can wear out to the gym or when were out being active, such as a lake trip. Well looking on the internet and in the stores I realized that these shirts were the same cost as a regular tee....and my husband has a TON of tees! (As most men do!)

I had already started making him cutoff tees by removing the sleeves of a couple of shirts. Here's the thing, you get a ragged rolled edge of cotton that hits right at the end of the shoulder so the person looks hunched over. (IMO!) Even when you cut the sleeves off, instead of seam ripping them like I did, it still looks unfinished and ratty....which is ok for the gym, but everywhere else....big NO NO! So I took it upon myself to figure out a solution. The hubs had a couple of store bought muscle shirts already. I looked at them to see what about them looked better. *The indents of the sleeves were in more and the arm holes were slightly bigger then a standard tee. Also, the edges were hemmed for that nice finished look. Done! I figured that I could do exactly the same thing and for much less with what we already had! I did make a trip to a local thrift store and found the gem pictured above and a couple of others for only $4! I also took 4 of the hubbs existing shirts that I already had removed the arms and fixed them up. Here's what you need:

T-Shirt (Old, new, thrift store....whatever!)
Seam ripper (optional)
Scissors
Pins
Sewing Machine
Template (I used an existing muscle tee that fit him well)

1. Ok the first thing I did was seam rip the sleeves off. This is an extra step that I did, and you could just start at #2. I wanted to see how large the armholes were and where they hit on my hubby's body.

Sleeves Seam Ripped

2. I took an existing shirt that fit my hubby well and used it as a template to cut the arm holes on each side of the shirt.

Template to cut

Cut holes

3. I turned the shirt inside out and folded over a hem about 1/2 inch down all around
the arm hole and pinned as I went.

Pinning away

4. Sew a 1/4" seam from the edge of the shirt. (I have a nice new(er) machine that has a stop on the edge of my foot that shows me exactly where 1/4" is! Error proof!)

1/4" seam

5. Since I don't have a surging option on my machine I just sewed another seam 1/4" on the inside of the first seam to keep the hem down and from rolling! I tried to hide my back-stitching on the top seam or on the back.....since I have limited thread colors some show up more than others! :-S

Double 1/4" seam

6. Turn the shirt right side out and admire your work, make your hubby do a fashion show and pat yourself on the back for a thrifty re-do!

Fin!

Here's the finished products. I did the 3 "new" i.e. thrift store shirts and the 4 that I previously started (I found another white one going through his drawer!) The man now has enough muscle shirts to wear one every day of the week. Looks like he's gonna be nice and cool on our lake trip! My fav's are the Transformers one and the Irish Pub.....it's so SOFT! I might steal it for a sleep shirt!