Making Old Clothes Better

The photos below are before-and-after shots of two shirts I'm in the process of taking in. The shirt on the left (purple) has quite a flare at the waist, which has always made me feel uncomfortable. I've addressed the problem by only wearing these blouses under a sweater or jacket of some kind, but warm weather is just around the corner and that's not going to cut it for much longer.

I began by extending the darts to the bottom hem, as you can see on the right-hand (green) shirt. That didn't do the trick entirely, so I ripped out the hem at each side seam and extended the side seams straight down from their narrowest place. This makes the shirt fit much better around my belly.



I re-stitched the hem along the side seams and now I have short-sleeved blouses for spring and summer!



You can click either of these photos to see a larger image.