how to resize a sweatshirt

I went to the Trocadero's Movie Monday this week to see Slumdog Millionaire. Movie Mondays are awesome for the following reasons:

-they cost $3. I can certainly not afford $10 movie tickets on my AmeriCorps stipend.

-you can drink beer while you watch movies. without having to hide it from ushers.

-the $3 not only gets you in, but it gets you a token that you can spend on $3 worth of popcorn or drinks. This equals one and a half PBRs.

-if you go before 7pm, you get a free beer and a free bad of popcorn

-what else are you going to do on a Monday?

-after the movie, there is trivia and a raffle with prizes. Usually tickets to shows, sometimes sold out shows (like M Ward), sometimes lame shows, or shirts with beer/liquor slogans. Sometimes lame (tank tops with the Skyye vodka logo) and sometimes cool--which leads us to:

So I won the raffle after much anticipation, and my prize was a PBR hooded pullover sweatshirt. Size XL. I don't know how often I would wear a beer hoodie anyway, even if it is the "official beer of Philadelphia" or, more accurately, the official beer of hipsters in every city in America. But I would wear it more if it fit me. So tonight, I resized my new hoodie and I documented it for anyone who needs help resizing a shirt. Nothing fancy, just the same cut, but smaller:

How to do it:

It is easier to use a shirt that already fits you rather than measuring your 3-D body and trying to figure it into 2-D measurements.  Turn the big shirt inside out and line the sleeves up like so.  It doesn't really matter if the pattern shirt is inside out or not.

Pin along where the new seam should be.  Generally speaking, the more pins you use, the more accurate the resizing will be.

After pinning both sleeves, center the body.  In this instance, the bigger shirt is going to be a lot longer than the little shirt.  I pretty much just widened it at the bottom in order to make my sewing meet up with the stretchy hem that is already on the PBR hoodie.  It's super simple to resize if you utilize hems that are already on the shirts.  You don't have to make your sewing nearly as neat because it will all be hidden.

Pinned, but not yet cut:

Notice that where the sleeves are going to meet the body, on both the sleeves and on the body, i pinned roughly where they will meet by using the small shirt as a pattern.  The tops of sleeves are convex and the armholes in shirts are concave.

Now, I cut.  I used a pinking shears and left lots of space in case I wanted it to be bigger in any areas.  I left about an inch outside of the pins, when only a quarter of an inch was really necessary.  If you've measured and pinned properly, this shouldn't be a problem, but it is always better to be safe than sorry.  Especially when dealing with rare apparel like PBR hoodies.

Then I sewed the body and the sleeves, following the pin lines.  Obviously, do not sew the armholes on the body or the sleeves!  Be sure to reinforce all the ends (cuffs, armpits) as you will be wearing your newly resized shirt frequently, probably.  

Now turn your sleeves right-side out and stuff them inside the body.  Start pinning by matching up the armpit seams because it will look really dumb if these don't match.  Once you start pinning around, you can move the sleeve in or out to make the two circles fit perfectly.  You don't want bunched wrinkles at any part of the sleeve or it will look pretty amateur.  Once again, if you have pinned properly, this should work out fine.

Close up of armpit seams, which can be tricky:

And then you sew the sleeves on.  Use the same methods for both, as in, leave the same amount of excess fabric at the seams so you don't end up with one longer sleeve.  I started sewing at the shoulders but back-stitched at the armpits for extra reinforcement.  Sometimes the shoulders end up looking a little boxy but it's nothing a little wear won't relax.  And voila.  Cut off extra threads, cut off excess seam fabric if you left some, and wear it every day until you get sick of it.

Notes:

-Be careful not to sew the hoodie strings in any of the seams.  Pin them up if you need to.

-Always cut too big when in doubt.  Measure twice, cut once.  This also applies when talking about hair.

-American Apparel charges $39 bucks for these, and without cheap beer screenprints.  Though I do sort of still want the evergreen one.