How to stretch T-Shirts

I know this post seems a kind of an odd one, but the possibilities are endless. You can stretch a shirt you love but has shrunk thanks to the enemy dryer and washer (Really must remember to get them back on side at some point!) or whether it be because you want to design on a large shirt, sometimes the shirt simply looks like you've brought a shirt that doesn't fit. Stretching really can be very useful, beware however of T-shirts that have a design on already, you may just stretch the design if you aren't careful!

So Attempt 1#:
Simply try pulling the shirt to stretch it, you can pull it in any direction just not diagonally, so just horizontal or vertical. You may need to tug at it a couple of times, but this is good for shirts that don't need all that much extra stretch.

Attempt 2#:
Wet the t-shirt thoroughly with water and then lay it somewhere (on a flat surface) and just again pull and then hang to dry. Remember to put a towel on the floor, so that it doesn't get wet since obviously the water will need to go somewhere. Alternatively once hung you can carry on stretching and dry it with a hair dryer.

Attempt 3#:
I've read in other places that you should do this while the shirt is wet, however to be honest I don't know how good that is for you're iron so it's up to you whether the shirt is dry or not. But put the Iron on a low to medium heat and then just pull the shirt while your ironing, and use the iron to keep pushing the fabric to stretch it.

Attempt 4#:
You can get someone else to wear the shirt of course as well... not sure how that would stretch the shirt though so not really advising that one for now!

Hope this helped, as always leave comments if you have any questions, or if you did anything really cool with your stretched t-shirts! also which attempt worked well for you?

Turning a simple dress into a Playsuit/RomperSuit

I love play suits, however I just don't look good in them. I recently got my lovely boyfriend to buy  a bundle of dresses off Ebay, and this one came in the bundle, I'm not much of a floral person, but I love play suits and thought it would make quite a cute play suit just for messing about in the garden and such in, so here is a tutorial. Please try on the dress first to see how it fits, I skipped this part and it doesn't fit unless I loose some more weight, so for now it's tucked in the back of my closet.


How to:

1)   1)   Find a simple dress and press (iron) it so that there are no creases, don’t worry if like me you’re useless with an iron, this step isn’t necessary but it just helps when drawing since creases are hard to draw over.

2)   2)   Now find a pair of shorts or jeans, ideally boot cut, since I’m not sure how it would work with skinny jeans etc, but boot cut are just a lot more rectangular and less fiddly I should imagine.

3)     3) Fold the dress and the jeans/shorts in half. Make sure to fold the dress wrong sides together so that your pattern is inside, not facing up at you.

4)     4) Place the halves on  top of each other as so. I would advise if the dress is like the one I am using that you make the crutch about an inch or so lower, since mine turned out to have REALLY long legs.

5)      5) I advise before just cutting, that you pin and then try on, I didn’t do this, and forgot the size of my bum… it doesn’t fit properly, therefore trying it on before does help, that way you can adjust the pins and such and make sure you can pull it up properly….. however if this is on a dress that you will never like and is simple a run through to see how to do it so that you can then do it on a dress you do like… then I suppose you can skip the whole adjusting thing just so that you get the idea.

6)   6)   Now you can try to simply just cut round the jeans or if you’re a bit like me, you can draw then cut, anything will work really.

7)      7) Then simply unfold and pin them and then sew and they should look brilliant (: I used a ½ hem allowance since I could tell before I started that they were going to be small in the leg, however I would advise 5/8 instead. I just used a straight stitch. Do try your machine on a sample piece (the bit you chopped out for the crutch will do) and just make sure your machine is set up okay.

If you have any questions feel free to just leave it in a comment and I'll check the posts regularly, hope your play suits come out a bit better than mine did,but the main instructions are here!

zxoxo

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