Over-sized Shirt Fix #2: Sleeveless Tshirt

   Supplies needed:
1 shirt
1 pair of scissors
A needle and thread or(and)a large quantity of safety pins


   Okay, here is my second way to re-size a shirt, though you're still going to have more or less a tshirt this time(unless you get creative, who knows, let the inspiration flow if you want).  You could theoretically use this as a guide to re-size another kind of shirt, though I haven't tried it myself yet.  If you're re-sizing a too big button down, though, I definitely recommend making it into a vest, because mine is really cool, and you can learn how to do that here.  

   Enough of my rambling, lets get down to business.  I am, and will always be a fan of the tshirt, even the baggiest one, but some things I prefer to fit my body a bit better.  Honestly, I wanted to do something new that I'd thought of, and mutilating this shirt seemed like a good idea since I had a terrible time at the concert, so here is my tutorial.

Now, this is about as T shaped as a tshirt can be, very straight, and it kind of smells like weird chemicals.
I'm going to keep the sides straight in my re-sizing, but if you would want to curve inwards to fit a female shape, more, go for it.

Realistically, I am cutting straight down the side, starting about an inch inwards from the seem on the shoulder.  I have my binder there as a straight line to help keep me honest with my cuts.
Caution: Before you dig in, you should put it on and pinch it as tight as you want it on the sides to get a good idea of how much you need to cut.

If you cut and it turns out a bit jagged, don't worry about it, it's not noticeable with any rout you're going to close up this side with.  If it is, well, that just makes it a little more rock & roll.

Oops, well, can't take it back now.

 If you feel you've mutilated your tshirt at this step, even if you don't finish this, make a pillow or something, don't worry about it.  When I first got into altering/making clothes, I'd panic certain points thinking "WHAT HAVE I DONE?"
So, your tshirt is badly wounded at this point, and the other side probably knows what's coming, so go ahead and slice the other one, too.

Your shirt should look something like this, more or less a double sided apron.  Now comes the fun part, closing up the sides.

Ugh, this concert was awful

Ok, now, there are a few ways you can go about closing this up: You can safety pin it until it sees jesus(picture below), you can sew it(what I'm doing) or you could lace it up(like in my vest tutorial I linked before).

The picture looks kinda funky because it was too dark in the original, so I ended up messing with it to make the details visible and the colors became real wonky.  You're done if this is the rout you're taking.

We're gonna sew up the sides now if you're still with me, remember to turn the shirt inside out(if you're an old pro with sewing, I apologize for restating that), and remember that you're gonna need to leave room for your arm at the top if you have arms, but I'd really like to see a video of feet sewing if that is the case, that sounds awesome.

Once you've done that, just repeat on the other side the same way, though be careful to have the arm holes the same size, it probably wouldn't be visible, but I think it would be bothersome.
I ended up using safety pins to hold the fabric in place while I was sewing, it's a bit harder without a sewing machine.

See, jagged edges aren't visible after you sew it up

All right,  Now that you've sewn up the sides, your shirt should look something like this.  Now, you can do anything you want with it at this point, but this is the end of our journey together.  I've taught you all I know.  You can cut the neck out of it, you can attack it with a pair of scissors, anything you want, go ahead.  I hope you liked your results.

I'm so sorry for the pictures

 I became quite carried away with paint.

All right, if you have any comments, questions or just want to talk about things, drop me a comment or email me at homemadevk@gmail.com

Faux Safety Pin Piercing Tutorial

Supplies needed:

• 2 Safety Pins
• A wire cutter, preferably something smaller so you can be precise
• An emery board or sand paper

*Please note that I'm not telling you to pierce your ears in a non-sterile environment, encouraging you to back down to the man or to use unidentified metals in your ears if they are sensitive!
*Warning!  Like a lot of earring, if safety pins are yanked hard enough, you may have damage to your ears! (I've seen some things O_O) Be careful.

Alrighty, let's get down to business.  A very well known piece of the alternate life style would the be Safety Pin Piercing.  This practice has passed down from our punk lords in the 70's to the grateful little boys and girls in this day & age in many different substyles and subcultures.  We love to use our shiny, shiny safety pins in our clothes, and many people have them in their skin.  Now, there are a few issues with this to some:

-If you work, you might not be able to rock your safety pin for the world to see.-If you're a minor, your parents might have a panic attack(like I caused my parents frequently)-You might not want to deal with the pain.-You might already have a piercing in the ideal spot,
or many others.
I, for one, already have my ears pierced, and thus cannot shove a safety pin though them.  There is an easy way to get around this!  Hear me out.  I have been reading this autobiography of Anthony Kiedis, and he was around this amazing time in punk, and it inspired me to do something I'd been thinking about for a long time.

Faux Safety Pin Piercings

Now, you might think this defeats the purpose of the thing, but some people simply can't, so if you can't, you do the best you can, and a huge rule in any substyle or subculture is that you don't have to dress the part every second of the day.  You can veg in your sweat pants blasting some music, taking off the bracelets and undoing your safety pins.
Let's get started.

    To start off, grab yourself a safety pin, it should be about medium in the scheme of things, just put it up to your ear to make sure it wouldn't be tight on your ear if it was in your piercing.

I wouldn't recommend using colored or coated safety pins, even with the least sensitive ears, because I don't know what kind of affect it would have, and it may irritate your skin.

 

Grab your wire cutters

Here I'm just using pliers with wire cutters at the base, as a lot do

   Now we're going to cut off the sharp end of the safety pin so we don't end up with a new unintentional hole in our ears.  You'll want to get as close to the edge as possible, because if you cut too far the head of the safety pin won't be able to catch it and you won't be able to close it.  You'll want to cut right at the base of where the safety pin slopes down to a point, you'll be able to see it where I circled in red at the close up.

P.S.! Before I forget, dispose of the piece you cut off IMMEDIATELY.  Put that thing in the trash, you do NOT want that stuck in your foot or something.

  Now that you've cut it, it will likely be a bit jagged and/or sharp.  Mine looked like this, and this was the second time I'd been through all the steps though I've done it a few more times now.

   In this step, you can use sand paper, an emery board or realistically anything abrasive enough to take an edge off of this.  I'm using an emery board only because pretty much all of my sand paper is covered in charcoal.
With this, it might take a while, and it might at least partially destroy your emery board, but it will make it fairly similar to the end of an earring wire. 

All you really need to do is hold it upright(or near upright) and scratch it back and fourth on your emery board, simple stuff.

You're done!  You might want to give it a rinse or a little wipe if they're a little dusty, but that's it.  Now you just have to repeat these steps with another one and you'll have a matching pair(if you want more than one). 

Aww yis

I like to put my safety pins in what would be considered backwards for a normal earring, meaning that I put the end of the safety pin through the back, closing it in the front, but you can do it any way you want

                                                     

Back to the beginning for our final photo-

                                       

PLEASE comment with any questions(or any thoughts what so ever)

Thank you!