Hello!
Welcome to a brand new episode of Make Thrift Buy, the show where you guys send in cool
clothes you've found on the internet, and then I do my best to recreate them, in order
to fight against cheap, disposable fast fashion and how to teach you guys how to make your
own stuff!
Today’s suggestion was sent in by zelhis.. .zelhistoir… that person.
Who wanted me to make this t-shirt.
Now if you cast your mind back to episode 22, I’ve actually already made this bag,
but back then I wasn’t able to find any proper holographic material, and this kinda
caused some people to lose their minds – GUYS – you know you’re actually allowed to
use whatever fabric you want when you recreate these things for yourself?
ANYWAY guess what – I actually found some proper, stretchy HOLOGRAPHIC MATERIAL the
other day, so those people who were unreasonably angry at me last time can now chill out a
little bit.
Anyway, let’s get started.
You can start this DIY with any plain t-shirt that you own.
I thrifted mine for 50c, and it is tighter fitting than the one in the suggestion, but
it’s all I had on hand and I also wanted to show you that you can use whatever style
of shirt that you like.
It doesn’t have to be white either – basically any t-shirt will work.
It’s hard to see on the camera, but this particular t-shirt also had yellow sweat stains
that were just on the sleeves, so it was the perfect t-shirt to upcycle and give a new
life.
Now the first step is to remove the sleeves.
So, I turned the t-shirt inside out and I got a pair of small, sharp scissors.
Most store-made shirts will use overlocking stitches, that look like this, to attach the
sleeves to the body.
The quickest and easiest way to remove these stitches is to find the side of the seam where
the overlocking stitches look like this.
Notice these two lines of thread going across the loops?
These are the threads that I wanted to cut through, so I snipped through these every
3 or 4 stitches along.
Once I’d done that all the way around the sleeve seam, I could basically just pull on
the threads on the other side of the seam, and ALL of the threads came loose.
By using this method it only took a couple of minutes to remove the sleeves!
Now I’m going to set the body of the shirt aside for the moment, and I’m going to use
just one of the old sleeves to make a pattern for some new sleeves!
Now, the original sleeves on this t-shirt were pretty small and tight, however I wanted
to make the new contrasting sleeves both wide and longer.
So I’m not only going to trace and copy the old sleeve, I’m also going to modify
it to make it bigger as well.
So first I cut open the original sleeve to make it flat, and then I traced around the
top of this original sleeve, onto some blank butcher’s paper.
I then made the sleeve a little bit longer by extending the pattern straight down from
the curved edge, like this.
And I ended up with this sleeve pattern.
Now, I also wanted to make the sleeve WIDER, so I cut up the pattern vertically in 3 places
like this, and then I separated the 4 resulting sections.
The top of the sleeve is still the same length as the original, but the rest of the sleeve
is now WIDER.
I traced around this slashed and spread-out pattern, onto more pattern paper, also extending
the sleeves to make them a little bit longer again, adding an even 7 inches on both sides,
and then I added a slightly curved bottom edge to join up the ends, and now I’ve got
my new sleeve pattern, which I cut out.
Notice how much bigger it is in size to the original sleeve?
However, the top edge is still the same length, which is important because the new sleeves
with still fit on the original t-shirt.
With the sleeve pattern done, I grabbed my holographic material.
To cut out two mirrored sleeves at once, I folded the fabric over in half like this,
right sides together and then I laid the pattern down on top of the wrong side of the fabric,
put some heavy items on top of the pattern to hold it in place, and I cut around the
pattern with my rotary cutter, cutting through both layers of fabric at the same time.
This gave me two, mirrored sleeves, that look like this.
For each sleeve, I folded it in half, right-sides together like this and then I sewed down the
straight edge.
I used an overlocker (also known as a serger) for this step, but a zig zag stitch will also
work just fine.
Next, I finished off the bottom edges of the sleeves by first overlocking right around
the bottom edges – and again, this is a totally optional step – and then with the
sleeve still inside out I folded the bottom edge up about 5/8ths of an inch (which is
about 1.5 cm).
I stuck some pins in and I sewed all the way around the edge using a zig-zag stitch to
make a hem at the bottom of the sleeves.
Because I’m using stretchy fabric, I am also using a walking foot on my sewing machine,
so that the hem doesn’t become all weird and ruffled.
I am also using clear thread so the stitch won’t be visible from the outside.
After I repeated that process on both sleeves, it was now time to attach them to the body
of the original t-shirt!
To do this, first I turned the body of the t-shirt inside out.
Then I pushed one of the sleeves inside the armhole, hem-first, so that the curvy, raw
edge of the sleeve matched up with the armhole, right-sides touching, positioned so that the
seam on the bottom edge of the sleeve matches up with the underarm seams on the t-shirt
body.
Then using lots of pins, I pinned the two pieces together really well.
The last step was to sew the sleeve on, using a zig zag stitch, all the way around the armhole.
You can see that I’m struggling a little bit with the stretchy, slippery fabrics here,
but it’s not impossible if you leave the pins in ‘til the last moment and you go
really slowly.
After sewing the two together, I did finish off the seam by going over it again using
my serger, but again, this step is totally optional - it just gives you a more professional
finishing inside the garment.
After turning the shirt the right way around, I noticed that I should also iron the seams
to help them lay more flat.
But anyway - that’s it!
So, how did I go?
[Music plays]
Okay, so I just went into the sunlight wearing this t-shirt and I lit up like a rainbow!
I can - I understand why people defend holographic material so viciously now because LOOK at
this!
I'm a walking rainbow!
Woooow!
Pretty.
So, obviously my t-shirt is a little bit tighter-fitting than the picture in the suggestion, but I
knew that going in, because basically, I wanted to show you guys that you can use this technique
to add holographic sleeves – or, indeed, any kind of sleeves in any kind of stretchy
material you want – to any style kind of t-shirt that you want!
So my conclusion is: [Scissor snipping and zipper sound effect]
If you'd like to leave a suggestion for a new make thrift buy then use the hashtag #makethriftbuy
on twitter, instagram, or leave a comment in the comment's section down below on my
most recent video.
I've given up telling people to not send them to me on twitter and instagram, 'coz you all
did anyway, so if you want me to see your suggestions: put up a picture, use the hashtag
#makethriftbuy and I'll browse it frequently to look for new suggestions for new videos!
OH and if you haven’t already, please check out my Patreon page!
I’m currently trying to fund a proper sewing workbench that is adjustable so I can raise
it to a level where I don't have to bend over and hurt my back all the time, it will also
be really useful for using patterns because I am to be - hopefully soon - doing a "how
to sew with patterns" series for you guys.
So it basically means new and better quality videos for you guys, and selfishly, I also
won't be in so much pain anymore when I try and sew.
And thank you so much to all of my amazing Patreon supporters, I couldn't do what I do
without your help.
But of course, if you can't help me out on Patreon right now, then feel free to share
my videos on social media, with your friends who you wanna get into sewing and have some
crafternoons with...
Anyway, that’s it from me and I’ll see you all in my next video.
Bye!