Projects & Tutorials, Sewing, Sewing & Crafts

How to Lengthen a Shirt that’s too Short

 / February 18, 2012

After I gave birth last year, I found myself no longer fitting in my maternity clothes, but also not back to my pre-pregnancy size.

Soo in a desperate search for clothes that fit & were cheap I ordered some online. This is not something I normally do, but I found a handful of shirts from a store that normally fits me very well on clearance for $7 each so I tried it out. The size was fine, but the length was definitely not. They stopped just at the top of my pants, which does horrible things to accentuate the “muffin top” look.

 

I made them work with tanks underneath, but I was still disappointed in how unflattering they were. I held onto them hoping once I “got my body back” they’d fit better. Nope. So I thought I should try and do something about it.

I’ve seen tons of cool ideas on how to change up awkward fitting Tshirts on Pinterest, but done that really dealt with length issues. So rather than make things complicated I thought, why not add a simple band? My mom got me a ton of cute fabric quarters for Christmas, so I started by looking through those to see if I could find one that coordinated – and I did!

*READER SUGGESTION: TONS of you have commented that it would work better to use a stretchier fabric for the accent, rather than a stiff cotton – I totally agree! 

 

 

While I was still wearing my shirt, I measured up from the bottom of the shirt to under my bust line, leaving a little extra room for the seams and such. I went with 9 inches and marked my line with a white “dress marking” pencil that was in a sewing kit also from my mother.

Because I was using a non stretch fabric with a stretchy shirt, I wanted it to be in a location that didn’t need much give. Plus I though just adding it to the bottom would look to obvious and awkward.

 

 

Making sure my bottom hems were matched up perfectly, I cut the shirt in half along my pencil line. I then ironed my fabric & cut two, 5 inch strips {using the full length it had.}

 

 

I laid one of strips beside where I had cut my shirt to measure how long each strip should be.

 

 

The exact measurement was about 16.5″, but I cut mine at 17″ because I knew my seams would be a little bigger and again because it was not stretchy.

 

 

After cutting my strips to size, I placed them facing each other and sewed each of the ends with a 3/8″ seam allowance.

Once I had the ends sewn, I turned my fabric band right-side-out and inserted it into my Tshirt which was still inside-out {so both of the “right-sdes” were touching. I then pinned them: I matched the seams on the sides first, then did the middles, and then added a few more in between making sure it all lined up. I again used a 3/8″ seam allowance.

 

 

I then repeated the exact same process with the lower half of the shirt and then ironed the seams down while it was inside out.

 

 

That’s it! I love how easy it was. Here are some “afters”:

 

 

It’s now a great length and I love how well the fabrics go with each other. I’ve been wearing it all day and it’s super comfortable as well – I’m not constantly adjusting layers of Tshirt and tank top to stay covered!

 

 

It occurred to me it might be cute to add belt on top of the band so I gave that a go & I actually think it looks pretty cool! Yeay for such an easy fix! Now for the other five shirts just like this one lol…

 

 

 

— Pin For Later —

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