Easy DIY – Restyled Sweatshirt (yes you can)

+side-panels to make a shirt bigger

These sweatshirts run pretty small, plus the dryer shrank it even more 🙁 I’m coaching this season, so I wanted to have the sweatshirt for those early season games that are a bit chilly. I needed to restyle and resize the sweatshirt to fit.

Searching my closet, I found a white/black striped shirt that had a hole in it and a small stain. Well, that wasn’t wearable anymore, so why not up-cycle?

I cut a slit up each side of the sweatshirt, just short of the armpit. Then, I cut a triangle of fabric that added several inches to the bottom of the sweatshirt. (Yeah, it was pretty small before.) Pinning the right side of the triangle to the right side of the sweatshirt, pull the bottom up until it exactly aligned with the hem of the sweatshirt. This took some finessing.

Sew straight up the side, with a 1/4-1/2″ seam. Did you notice, I did not sew the hem at the bottom of my panel? Don’t worry, I’ll show you how to handle that soon. Now things get a little bit tricky. On the other edge of your triangle, pin the right side of the sweatshirt to the right side of the panel. Make sure to match the edges up and align the bottom hem. Sew straight up the side again. Do it all again on the other side.

Oooh, we’re so close! Originally I tried to finish the bottom hem with stitch-witch/No Sew Fix. It really just didn’t feel secure. I felt very tentative about adjusting my sweatshirt while I wore it. I opted to go back and sew the bottom hem, now I feel great in my up-styled, up-sized, up-cycled sweatshirt!

The no sew finishing strip did help me keep the hem straight across, so sewing was super easy and quick.

Try on your up-cycled sweatshirt, go on, try it.

Out-takes: Yes, I had to stitch-rip after the first line of sewing. I had tried (and failed miserably) at a different solution in trying to make this sweatshirt fit better. Welp, you win some, you lose some. Try #2 looks pretty good, though.