MissAmyShops - Frugal Fashion Style Guide & Unique Fashion Boutique for the Frugal Fashionista - MissAmy's Blog - The Frugal Fashionista's Guide to Living Well & Being Fabulous!: Long Sleeve to Sleeveless Recon

Long Sleeve to Sleeveless Recon - or How to Size Up a Top - 10/27/2008

This is what I started with:

It's a Kenneth Cole long sleeved tee with lace up detail that I found at the thrift. I had to buzz off a zillion little pills to even think about selling it on ebay but then I decided that the material was really just too worn to try to sell to anyone. Thus it entered the experimental stack. Dun, dun, dun.

It really was just a tiny size, probably XS - there was no tag to tell for sure. So, I thought I could probably just use the sleeves to make the torso bigger. I cut them each off, leaving a cool jagged edge on the arm hole, cut up the sleeve on each side of the seam - so each one was a flat piece of material. Then I cut up the shirt side seams the same way, removing the original seam. I opted not to use a seam ripper since the top had such dense stitching & I wanted to save time & end up with smooth edges to match up.

Once I had separated the side seams, I pinned the sleeve fabric in place, treating it as if it was just more fabric for expansion. I matched up the hems on the sleeves with the hem of the waist. After that, I just had to cut off the excess fabric under the arms, pin in place & make my sleeve hole hem.

I think it turned out really well & now is fully wearable for me.

This is the outfit I wore it with today. I think it gave nice shape to the slightly too big button-down plus added a little edgy detail with the lacing at the neckline. I did notice that it has continued to pill so may not be featured again. Maybe that's why it was at the thrift? Such it life...