Shortening tees at home?
Has anyone had success doing this? How hard is it to get the hem perfectly straight, and will a standard stretch stitch work, or do you need a coverstitch to make the hem look and feel identical?
I bought a decent sewing machine years ago, but I've barely used it because I ultimately decided that I didn't want to risk ruining my expensive pants. I have similar reservations with some of the tees I want to crop since they're limited editions or can't be easily replaced. The tailor I've been going to wants to charge as much to hem them as to fully alter a dress shirt though, so I'm seriously considering getting better at sewing and giving it a go.
Is it worth it? How likely am I to ruin my shirts? (Obviously, I would practice on others first, but is it reasonable to expect to get decent results even then?) I'm fairly meticulous, so if the alignment is off even slightly, I would consider that ruined. YouTube tutorials make it look easy, but they don't often show all the finished details up close.
2 Replies
t-shirts are difficult to hem without the correct machines (ideally a coverstitch or a overlocker if not that). you won’t get an identical hem without a coverstitch machine, but up to you to decide how much of a dealbreaker that is. you could also try preserving the original hem and just removing the fabric between the hem and your crop line, similar to how jeans are shortened
the alignment is the easy part, just make sure you’re comfortable stitching a straight line, measure and mark a bunch and go slowly
thanks, that's what I was afraid of, but I might try doing some with the original hem and see how it goes. I hadn't thought of that, although it sounds considerably harder to pull off