How to Tailor a Men's Dress Shirt

Today we are going to tailor some of my button down shirts. There is no reason why this is specific to men's shirts, works the same for men's or women's shirts! Super easy and you will feel so much more comfortable now that the shirt actually fits! What a concept...

In this tutorial I am going to be taking in the torso on my shirt so that it has a more tapered look. It is super easy and I was thrilled with how much better the shirt fit afterwards and how much more comfortable it was.

What you will need:
- A shirt that doesn't fit as well as you would like it to
- Sewing machine, thread, and pins.

Steps:
1) Put the shirt in question on inside out. Then on the side seams, while you are wearing the shirt, pin each side so that it fits better. I decided I would not take in the arms at all but you may want to given the fit of the shirt. Start on the bottom and work your way up to the armpit of the shirt. (It is at this point where you either stop if you are not going to take in the sleeves, or if the sleeves are too big work you way from the cuff into your armpit and have both pinned eyes meet at the same point in your armpit.) This is what it should look like when you are all done.

I took about 2 inches off both sides (1 inch of pinned fabric) and didn't pin my arms. Its very important that you take in equal amounts from both sides or else the button down may not be in the center anymore. (I may have done this on a shirt I am not showing in the tutorial...)

2) Now take the shirt off while keeping the pins in. 

Now I don't have a close up of this, but from the left most pin I am going to make a sharp angle toward the armpit seam. 

3) Starting from the bottom of the shirt, sew a straight stitch on the line you made with your pins. 

As I mentioned before, once you get about an inch away from the armpit seam you should angle over from your tailor seam to the armpit seam edge. Sorry I don't have a better picture of this. 

4) Once you have done both sides I would try the shirt on again to make sure you like the way it fits, if it is still too loose take it in more, or if you made it too tight then take it out and start again. Depending how much your took in you may want to cut the fabric out. I opted not to do this, mostly to allow me to take the shirt back out again later if I want to. But you don't want the flap on the inside, so I sewed it flat. 

This is the flap on the inside you now have. 

Here you can see that I just folded it toward the back of the shirt...

..and pinned in flot. 

Then sewed it again. 

This will cause you to have a new seam line on the sides of your shirt but I didn't think this was a problem and it was nice to have the flap pressed flat and out of the way. 

Thats it! You now have a much better fitting shirt! 

~Andrew

Fresh Fabric for POANG Ikea Chairs

Today we are going to reupholster two of my favorite POANG chairs from IKEA. I picked up the black on from some people who were moving (for free!) but I was not about to use their worn and bulky sheepskin cover that came with it. The brown chair and ottoman was mine and I decide it too could use a fresh update.

The black chair got a full overhall, which was harder than I thought it would be. For the brown chair I simply made a cover to go over the existing chairs fabric. If you have the original cover for the chair and you don't mind just putting something over it (i.e. its not someone else's gross matted sheepskin cover) I would highly recommend this, its way easier.


What you will need:
-A chair to reupholster (obviously)
-Probably about 2 yards of 60in width fabric (varies by chair style slightly, and whether or not you have the ottoman)
-any cording or edging that you want (I made my own, again, not the easiest route...but it can be done)
-batting (if you are stripping the cushions down to foam, the blue chair I did this, the gray chair I did not so the batting wasn't necessary)
-Sewing machine, thread, pins.

I also added some contrasting throw pillows, full tutorial on this type of pillow can be found here


Steps:
1) First I deconstructed the sheepskin covers I got with the black chair. I salvaged the zippers and the velcro. Ended up not using either for this project, maybe another project!

2) The next thing I did was to prepare the cording I would use as and edging. I made it out of black fabric I had left over from the lining of the elastic waistband skirt here. I cut the black fabric about 2.5 inches wide, and as long as I could. Obviously I didn't have a single piece that was long enough, but it was easy enough to daisy chain the fabric along. The cord I used was just some 3/8in rope I had. Most fabric stores sell remade edging like this, this would be a lot less work, and I would probably do this in the future. 

Fold over the fabric and sew the rope in. 

Set the needle to maximum left most position and sew a straight stitch!

This is what it looks like once you have run out of fabric and need to incorporate more, easy!

3) Next step was two estimate the front and back fabric sizes. To do this I put the foam inserts on the chair and measured. Remember to leave room for your seam allowance and that this will essentially be a flat pillow so take into account the height of your foam for the edges. I ended up underestimated and made it a little too tight. Also the fabric I choose was very thin and really needed some padding in between the fabric and the foam. I didn't have any so I used an old towel (gray). This meant I had to sew this to the front fabric and since I didn't have any thread that was the electric blue of my fabric I decide that I would make this a "feature". So I used black thread and measured two very straight lines and sewed two straight stitches. See how I measured this below.

My fabric was about 24 inch wide, so i measured where my halfway mark was (12 inches) then measured two stripes 4 inches to the left and right of the center line. These two outside lines it what I would use to sew the straight stitches. 

Adenine the cat approves!

4) Next step is to attach the back and the edging we made. Pin it all up together with the insides facing out! 

Here we have the back panel on the bottom, then the edging with the cord facing inside, and the front panel on top. 

Pinned together. 

Once again sew right against the cord in the edging piece. 

 Going around the corners is kinda tricky, just go slow, you can do it!

5) I went 3/4 the way around so that I had an opening to shove the foam inserts in. Squeeze them in, and sew the top shut. 

Here you can see that my cover is a bit tight and a bit too small, really had to stretch it to get it sewn shut. 

Finished cushion! 

6) The last thing I did was make the head rest, this chair had a separate head cushion, my other chair (coming up next) did not, so your may not either. If it doesn't then you are all done! I basically did the same thing for the head cushion that I did for the main cushions. It was getting late and it looks like I forgot to take as many pictures of this process as I would have liked, here is what have...

The curved part was hard, don't have a good solution for that, probably should have cut out half moon pieces for the sides. I didn't do this and that made things harder than it should have been. 

All done! 

Now for the second chair - this one was much easier because I decided to just cover the current cushion. I also did not include any edging which made it go fast, and the head cushion was attached so that was easy too. The other different part for this chair was the ottoman. It really needs the velcro strip on the bottom to keep the cushion on the ottoman. 

Great chair but very fun faded original black fabric. 

Locate the velcro on the bottom. 

1) Here is the velcro on the bottom of the ottoman, use a seam ripper to take it off. 

2) The ottoman was very simple, just two squares of fabric. Stitch the velcro to whichever panel you are going to have be the bottom. Make sure to measure roughly where the velcro should be so that your cushion lines up on the ottoman base. 

3) Sew 3/4 of the edges, your velcro should on the on the inside of the sandwich. Then stuff the cushion inside the cover and sew the final edge shut. Ottoman done! 

4) The main cushion is just as easy. Lay begin by laying out your fabric into two large rectangles. 

Once again sew 3/4 of the sides, insert the cushion, and sew the final edge. Here I folded over the fabric twice to have a nicer edge since this edge would be more visible. 

Nicer edge. 

All done! 

A few final notes: 

The chairs originally had zippers on their cushion covers, I decided to not bother with this. This means I can't ever really wash the covers but this wasn't a huge deal to me. The chair cushions also had velcro like the ottoman but they didn't seem to need it so I didn't add the velcro strips to the chairs cushion. Finally, the comfort of the chair is really dependent on the batting under the fabric since fabric isn't inherently cushion-y. For the future I would buy some batting to line the fabric with. The brown chair with gray fabric didn't need it since it was more of a cover. But if you are totally stripping your cushion down to the foam I would highly recommend you buy something to go in between the outside fabric and foam. 

Enjoy your brand new chairs!

~Andrew

Simple elastic waistband skirt.

Today we venture into the realm of women's clothing with a simple elastic waistband dress. There is no shortage of tutorials out there and I had the help of two to complete this skirt. My skirt was not exactly the same as these as I decided to add a fabric to line the skirt. This doubled the amount of fabric I used but I think really increased the comfort and wear-ability of the skirt. It also allows you to buy a fabric that you don't necessarily want right against your skin all the time and add a comfortable fabric liner to have the best of both worlds. The lining also allows you to by a sheer or partially see through outer fabric without being too revealing! Finally, the elastic waistband adds an easy method to adding gathering to the skirt and obviously is very comfortable once you get the size right!

First I want to acknowledge the two fabulous tutorials that helped me make this skirt. The primary inspiration came from The Thinking Closet http://www.thinkingcloset.com/2014/05/14/elastic-waist-tank-dress-tutorial/ Thanks Lauren!

And for pinning the elastic to you dress, Lauren recommended Dana at MADE http://www.danamadeit.com/2008/07/tutorial-the-circle-skirt.html

So thank you to both Lauren and Dana for your helpful tutorials!



What you will need:
- 3in elastic band (length depends on the waist size you want)
- 2 yards of fabric (See calculations in Step 2, to see if this is an appropriate length of fabric)
- Matching amount of soft lining fabric (If you want to line it)

- Sewing machine, thread, pins, iron and ironing board


Steps: 
1) The first step is to measure and cut your waistband. Decide where you want it to sit on your body then add an extra 1in to the length. Fold the waistband in half and sew the two ends laying flat against each other together. Then fold the edges back and iron flat. Then sew them flat to create a nice flat seam. Lauren at The Thinking Closet has a nice picture of this, and apparently I forgot to take a picture...


2) Now that we have the waistband set, we just need to work on the skirt. You first need to decide how long you want the skirt, this has a lot to do with personal preference, body proportions, and where you decided you are having your waistband fall on your body. Let's call this number "A". Next we need to calculate the circumference of the skirt for the fabric. A quick rule of thumb is to multiply the length of your waistband by 1.5. Lets call this number "B". What you now need to make is a rectangle that has the dimensions "A" x "B" where A is the short side and B is the long side. We will be eventually connecting both A sides to each other to make a tube with circumference B. I hope these drawing help.

3) There are many ways to make this A x B rectangle of fabric. How you to this really depends on what kind of fabric you chose (sheer or not) and whether or not you are lining in. I used two solid fabrics, a navy blue fabric for the outside and a soft black fabric for the lining. To make my skirt I first began by pinning the two A x B dimension fabrics together with the "good" sides facing each other. Then I sewed a straight stitch along both B sides and one A side. I then flipped my giant pocket shape inside out and then sewed the two A sides together. This allowed me to have the unfinished edges on the inside of the skirt where they are *hopefully* less likely to fray and fall apart. Just like the waistband, once I sewed the two A sides together, I folded the A edges over and sewed them flat again.


4) Now the fun part. We have to pin one of the to B sides to the elastic waistband and sew it together. A good way to do this is to start by pinning the seam of your two A sides with the seam of your elastic waistband. Now go 180 degrees around the waistband and pin the exact front of the band to the exact front of the skirt. Then pin the two sides by approximating equal distance from the front and the back. Then work your way around by pinning equal distance between your four pins. You should now have 8 pins total.

I numbered the positions by which order I pinned them.  (ie pin #1 first) 

At this point you can decide if you want to put another 8 pins in, I did, since I thought it would be helpful when sewing it. I have learned to err on the side of more pins, especially as a beginner.

5) This is when the magic happens, are you ready? Start with your pin #1 in the back, stitch a few back a forths to really attach your skirt to the back of the waistband. Make sure to have your sewing machine end the stitch with your needle down in the fabric. Now comes the tricky part. You are going to grab point #1 and grab the next closest pin and stretch the elastic until the skirt fabric lays flat. You should have one hand behind your needle and the other hand on the fabric that will be feeding into your needle. Be careful NOT to put too much stress or bend your needle here. Once you have the distance form pin #1 to the next pin stretched and the skirt fabric is laying flat, sew a straight stitch until you reach the next closest pin. Now you can release the tension from the waistband and it should gather your fabric beautifully! Next you do the same thing, stretch the elastic between the two pins and sew a segment. Work your way around the waistband. That's it!

Hopefully you now have lovely gathers that give your skirt some nice body. Stop reading and try it on! I'm sure you already have. Adjust the length of the skirt if you would like, but the waistband should be perfect since we already tried it on before we sewed together. If you didn't you will have to rip out all your fresh stitches :( I may have done this...

Look at you, you made a piece of clothing, how exciting! Enjoy your new skirt!

~Andrew