Fitted Tee Tutorial - Scoop Neck

A  few weeks ago I learned how to make a large t-shirt into a fitted tee shirt.  Very cool, right?  But...I still had some trouble figuring out how to make the sleeves look right since the REALLY big t-shirts had such low shoulder seams.  Plus, the necks seemed awfully high and confining on some of the shirts I tried it on.

Since I'm NOT a seamstress of ANY kind, I went looking for some solutions and landed on this scoop-neck version that I think might be just what I needed.  

Here's what I started with and the link to the tutorial for how to get from a large t-shirt to a fitted t-shirt:

It worked great with my navy fire department shirt, but with this shirt, I wasn't happy with the neckline or the sleeves, which meant I hadn't worn it yet and wasn't sure whether I liked it.  So, I figured it couldn't hurt to get a little scissor happy on it again in an effort to "save" it once more.

I went back to youtube.com for some inspiration, and sure enough, found this video by ashleybrashier about "How to cut your shirt into a scoop neck".

Here's how it's done:

Lay your shirt on a flat surface. 

Make a small snip on each shoulder about an inch from the collar.  You can also put the shirt on and mark where you want to cut, but I've found that about an inch works perfectly for me, while keeping the shirt on my shoulders (instead of becoming an off-the-shoulder shirt). 

I also make a cut down the center of the front collar, so that I have a mid-point to cut towards to make an even scoop across the front. 

When you've finished cutting the front scoop, it looks a little like this:

Cut the back of the shirt straight across directly underneath the collar band.

Next, try on your shirt and mark where you want the length to be cut.  I just used my scissors to cut a little hole on one side. (PS...I don't recommend holding a camera in the other hand while snipping! That's just for this tutorial pic!)

Lay the shirt back out on a flat surface and begin cutting across the bottom of the shirt where you marked.  

I like to cut a small curve in the front, and then fold it over to match the other side.

For this shirt, I decided not re-cut the sleeves (yet), but you could cut them just after the shoulder seam to give the shirt an even more cropped-sleeve look.  I'm going to try this short little sleeve out first and see what I think. 

But that's it!  It's significantly more comfortable with this neckline, and (I think) a little more fashionable.  My husband still rolls his eyes and just sees me in a cut-up tee shirt. But that's a guy for you. :)