Turn a man's shirt into a Katherine-sized shirt!

I finally oiled my ol' sewing machine, and had to do something with it right away! Cue man's shirt transformation:

This is a man's medium, I think (I am small)

Be prepared to be dismantled, shirt!

If you look closely, you can see I pinned where my belly button lies, and I also pinned the sides of the shirt in at my waist.

Here is a close-up of those pins.

Here I CHOPPED off the bottom of the shirt at my belly button pin.

Then I chopped off the sleeves at their seams. After that, I cut the sides at my waist pins (with a seam allowance: see the ruler on the left? I made sure to do both sides evenly) and then also cut the arm holes closer to my neck. Well, I cut them where my shoulders lie. With a seam allowance. 

I re-sewed the side seams, at my measurement. Since I have nearly no bust, I cut straight up from my waist seam. If I had more bust, I would have cut it more at an angle, like an upside down triangle. 

See, I am shaped like a rectangle, not a triangle. I probably should have made it more triangular, since it is a bit tight at the bust. Ah well! That's what happens when you only measure once, and not twice.

I cut and re-sewed the arms so they weren't so baggy.

I also re-cut the shoulders and basted around so I could ease it in the armhole, since I don't know how well I cut it!

This is a weird picture of the arm in the armhole. See how I had to "ease" it in? It ended up working really well.

Here's a bit of context for that last picture- the arm is inside the shirt, right sides together.

Ta-da! A Katherine-sized shoulder. The sleeve is a bit long, but fine with me, since I will roll it up.

Poof! Two sleeves!

Now it's time to add the bottom part of the shirt. I guess I could have left it off, since crop tops are in fashion this summer... just kidding. I don't think that's a thing I'm going to do.

Not pictured: I based along the raw seam of the bottom half (at my belly button)

Pulling only one side of the thread, I gathered it all up so it aligned with the new smaller top part.

I made sure to pin that real good! I wanted a nice, even gather. I sewed across that pin line.

And here's the gather! It ended up falling a bit below my natural waist, but that's nothing a belt can't fix!

So here's the belt, and the rolled up sleeves. What a difference! Too bad it's pretty much summer weather now. I'll be saving this shirt for cold nights I guess!