DIY Fix: Striped Tanktop

One great thing about blogging is that it encourages me to finish up projects that would otherwise sit unfinished on my sewing table forever. I’m the type of person who works well with deadlines, however arbitrary, so trying to keep up with my Mon/Thurs blogging schedule helps keep me from getting too lazy!

Remember that striped tank top I posted about back in April? The one with the gaping armholes? No? You should read my blog more. Well, I finally got around to sewing up the armholes…..with the simplest fix on Earth.

Here’s the before shot to refresh your memories:

Sorry for the armpit shot. There really is no nice way to photograph one.

I was really procrastinating on fixing this due to my proclamation that I was going to start trying to sew “properly”. I thought that the “proper” way to do it would be to undo that armhole binding, snip out the extra fabric or insert a dart, then re-sew the binding. That sounded like a lot of work. Thankfully, I found myself a loophole. I decided that since this shirt was made before the proclamation (and was indeed partly what inspired it), I could grandfather it in on the old system of quick fixes. Phew!

I set my shirt up on my duct tape bust form that looks disturbingly like Rubber Man from the first season of American Horror Story (I haven’t done a duct tape bust form tutorial on this blog because there’s a million good ones out there…..and mine is too creepy to photograph in detail). All I did was take in the sides under the arms.

Yup, a few pins, a couple stitches and I was done. Totally glad I waited seven months to correct that problem. It was so laborious!

Previously, I had to wear my shirt covered up with a cardigan like this:

I don’t know what my bangs are doing in this picture. It’s that damn hair and makeup team slacking again!

And that worked for the most part. But what if I got hot???? What then????? I couldn’t just walk around with my bra hanging out (no matter what kids today are doing)!!!!!!