Modifying a Shirt

I thought I'd share a quick post on how I modified a shirt that I found at a thrift store for $3 in the men's department.

It had an itchy lining in the shoulder area made of netting so I cut that all out.  You can see the remnant of it around the edges. 

The shirt has vents in it, one along the back as you can see below and a couple along the shoulders.  The netting was holding that in place and allowing the shirt to move and breathe. After I cut the net insert out, I sewed the vents shut. 

It had a big pocket on one side with a zipper closing and the material of the pocket was thick and bunched up so I got my seam ripper and picked the zipper out and then cut out the pocket.

I sewed up the pocket hole. 

I saved the pocket because I might be able to use it for another project, but we'll see about that. 

Next, I cut some of the sleeves off to make it more of a summer shirt.  I don't hem sleeves because I don't care about all that and yes they fray a bit but not much.  ​

I also cut the collar off and removed any unnecessary buttons.  

Some men's shirts are really big on the arms and underneath but this one wasn't too bad so I didn't do anything with it. 

I'm looking into how to modify big men's shirts (because those are the ones I find a lot of)  if it all works out, I'll share.  I don't have a sewing machine out here on the gospel road so we'll see if hand sewing works for such a project but until then, maybe this will encourage you to open options on what you find that can be modified for you.

And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 
1 Timothy 6