How to Fix Stretched Out Shirts

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Debrah DeMirza at Deluxe Fashion Boutique in Eugene, Oregon. And I'm going to show you what to do for a stretched out shirt. So some fabrics would stretch out and not regain their original shape. And some fabrics, like wool, you can actually manipulate the shape to go back when you dampen the shirt and then you can actually show or make it go back in to its natural shape by just manipulating it, part of it, by hand and letting it dry on a towel that way. But if it's cotton like this t-shirt that's not going to go back to its original shape. So what you can do is take it in. I like to use regular children's chalk and you can mark. You can measure where you want to take it in and then you can actually just mark where you want to put your seam allowance on the shirt. And I would try it on first and then you can pin it and then you just make your lines. You can pin where you want it to go in and to make sure that the end of the shirt lines up at the right place you might want to pin it together first both ends. And make sure that that part is totally lined up. Pinning is great when you have stretchy fabric because it keeps each section locked in where it needs to be. And you want to make sure that you do both the beginning and the end where it's even. You don't want one part of your shirt hanging down further than the rest of it. So it's very, you can use more pins than you need to. And go ahead and surge that line. It'll cut it and surge it sewn shut. Or you can just take a tiny little zig zag stitch on a regular machine because knit stretches and you want to give it a little stretch by putting your zig zag in there and then sew that line. And if it tends to unravel, what you can do is do a bigger zig zag stitch on the edge of that to keep it from unraveling. So that will make your shirt a new shape or back to its original shape just by taking it in. And t-shirt material's excellent to do that with because it just is very easy to work with. So that's how you would handle a stretched out t-shirt."