How to enlarge a t-shirt.

Have you noticed that since the festive season most of your t-shirts have shrunk for some strange reason. All that pavlova, trifle and custard you ate wouldn't have resulted in a little fat adipose tissue being added to your normally slender frame, would it? Of course not! Well, it doesn't matter why your t-shirts are suddenly feeling too tight... here is a solution to your problem. Just enlarge your t-shirt.



A few years I saw a really easy tutorial on a blog which showed how to enlarge a t-shirt by inserting panels of fabric into the side seams and when I was looking on Pinterest the other day, I came across that old tutorial again and thought I would enlarge a few of my old t-shirts which had shrunk over the years :-) I had a look in my wardrobe but then remembered that I had de-cluttered it and had sent all my too-tight t-shirts off to have another life at the Op Shop. Blow!

Then yesterday when I was  de-cluttering the linen cupboard, I found all my old Curves t-shirts in a bag as I had saved them for future use in case I wanted to make a rag rug out of them. I had plenty of them as I did 900 workouts over the years when I went to the gym. The one I decided to use wasn't a pretty pink....







Source

...like the one in this tutorial from Crafterhours. No problem, it was just a trial run anyway.

So, armed with cotton fabric for the insert and my trusty Singer scissors...



...I cut right through the side seam and sleeve of the t-shirt. I was a bit confused by the instructions in the tutorial and thought I should just cut to the hem of the sleeve but decided that wasn't right so cut right through.

Then I measured the length I needed to cut for the insert. In the tutorial the insert in the sleeve is cut separately and joined to the side seam insert so I did the same.

Then the inserts are pinned to the right sides of the t-shirtand sewn ...



...and VOILA! You end up with this.

Sure it's not as figure-hugging as the one in the tutorial but seeing as I'm not 21 anymore I don't like clingy t-shirts and prefer to feel comfortable. I'm quite pleased with the result and might enlarge a few more t-shirts to make them wearable again. Who needs a rag rug anyway? :-)

What do you think? Isn't it a great idea?