Resizing a Button Down Shirt

I'm married to a skinny man. No two ways about it. Sometimes this makes finding awesome shirts for him at the thrifts difficult. If you've been in a thrift store lately, you know what I mean. The XL section goes on for miles, but there's only a measly five shirts in the S section. And one of them has a stain. On rare occasions, I do stumble across a lucky, perfect fitting find, grab it as fast as I can, and ecstatically rush towards the register before some other skinny hipster dude can body check me and make off with my find. More often, I find M or L size shirts in the most perfect prints and cry a little inside because they're so big Kevin will drown in them.

However, I've become ambitious lately due to lack of job. Mmmmm. Free time and ambition. A dangerous combination. So I got it in my head I could size down those too-big button down shirts with a flick of my fairy wand a little determination and our trusty sewing machine. Hence, the following. 

One final note before I dive in, this is not meant to be a tutorial. This was my first time attempting something like this, and you'll notice (particularly at one point) things didn't exactly go off without a hitch. But, I did learn some things along the way for next time and am happy to report the shirt was enough of a success that he wore it shortly after and I'm plotting over my next shirt victim. 

Step One: Take a BEFORE shot. Apologies for the poor image quality and the fact that it's on me and not my dude. I think you get the idea, though...it was big. 

Step Two: Cut off the sleeves. But only if you're sure they're not going to fit as is. Which I was. 

Step Three: Select a perfect-fitting shirt to use as a guide. Lay the small shirt on top of the big shirt, lining up the collars. Carefully trace around the small shirt at the sides and bottom (if necessary for a too long shirt) about a half inch out. 

Step Four: Sew the new side seams by following along the traced line. 

Step Five: Cut the excess off the sides on the outside of where you've just sewn. I suppose the outside part is obvious. However, I'm stressing it because I did the opposite by accident, as you can see by the picture below. Whoopsies. (Note: if you messed up step number five like I did, frantically try to sew the errant cut back together without it looking too messy). 

Step Six: Cut along the bottom hem as marked, being careful to line up the button bands on each side. Since I had to create a new hem, I did a double fold-and-iron so that the raw end was folded under, then did a double stitch along the bottom. I also elected to pin the hem here so that it would be nice and neat as I sewed. I finished it with a double line of straight stitching to look more like a proper hem. 

Step Seven: Turn your attention to the sleeves, which were detached from the body earlier. Lay out each sleeve like you did with the body, lining up the cuffs. Trace around the smaller sleeve about a half inch in. 

Step Eight: Sew along the traced line. There should be a point where the sleeves line up around the cuffs (most wrists are the same size I suppose). When you get there, try to make the stitches as neat and flat as possible to avoid any puckering. Cut off the excess material. 

Step Nine: Reattach the sleeves. This was by far the trickiest part, but in the end wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Turn both the body and the sleeve inside out, then line up the end of the sleeve in the body's sleeve hole. Be super careful that you're lining them up right side to right side (something I also didn't do right the first time, but thankfully caught before sewing). Pin close together so that the sleeve is nestled neatly within the body hole; again, to avoid puckering. If the sleeve is just a little too big for the hole, you can hide a little pit of puckering under the armpit. Or, if it's much too big, sew it down a little bit before attaching. 

Step Ten: Once sleeves are attached, turn right side out and finish with a double straight stitch around the armhole. Again, to look like a proper shirt.

Step Eleven: Proudly present to husband and beam when he chooses to wear it to work the following week!