HOW TO: Cut a Straight Line

Hey there, T-shirt Surgeons!

Get out your scissors. This isn't kindergarten, but we have to talk about how to cut a straight line.

**Sharp scissors are dangerous! If any young kids watch my videos and read this, please ask a parent to handle your scissors for you! I mean it, you guys! I don't want you getting hurt.**

Now, this blog is happening because so many people have commented on my videos saying they don't understand how I cut the lines in my shirts. In the videos, I usually show the t-shirt un-cut, point at the place where I'm going to cut and say "Cut here," and then the next frame shows the shirt with the line cut into it. In other words, it looks something like this:

T-shirt BEFORE

T-shirt AFTER, with one cut

In these drawings, the outside of the shirt is green, and the inside is shown in blue. So in the second drawing, you can see that there is a slice cut into the t-shirt front, because you can see the inside of the shirt through it. The way I see it, if you can think back to any craft projects you did as a kid, you can see how a line is cut in the center of your fabric. It's just like how you would cut a line in the center of a piece of paper, without cutting all the way to the edge of the paper. But just in case some people aren't with me, let's go a little more in depth!

Tutorial: No Sew, No Cut "Comfort Corset"

Hey there, Recon artists!

I got a new shirt in the mail that is, of course, a bit baggy. But I didn't want to cut it up at all, so I came up with a no sew, no cut, removable way to cinch in the sides a bit to fit my torso. It's a bit like Megan Nicolay's "Comfort Corset" design in her book, Generation T (the first one), but this one uses only safety pins and something to lace it with, so it's entirely removable if you decide to take the design out and wear the shirt baggy again. Click the pic to watch!

T-shirt Recon: No Sew, No Cut "Comfort Corset"

The shirt is from Ambiance: The Store for Lovers. I get a discount every year for my birthday but I've never used it until now, when I saw these great PRIDE shirts. View the shirts HERE to buy your own. Keep in mind, Ambiance is an "adult" store, so if you're under 18 and don't want to see adult items, don't look!

Happy Snipping!

-C-

Slashing a Shape

NEW VIDEO

This video is a how-to for slashing shapes in t-shirts. A lot of people asked me how I cut the lines when I did this design in another video. I couldn't believe people didn't understand it, but here's a close-up and hopefully better explanation of how it's done.

Happy Snipping!
-C-

Video Feature

One of my YouTube viewers wants to feature my T-Shirt Recon Basics #1 video on her blog! I'm all for that. Now if I can just figure out how to email her like she said...


-C-

T-Shirt Recon Tutorial: Rollover

Greetings, T-shirt Surgeons!

This is the tutorial for the "Rollover" design from Generation T, which my viewers call "the JUNO shirt" because I first did this design on a JUNO film shirt.

Click HERE to watch the tutorial!

Happy Snipping!

-C-

Dropkick Recon

This is an old post from an OLD blog. This is a recon I did a few summers ago that I did not do a video for, so I wanted to share it here. Here is the post, copied word for word from the old blog:

S*** IS F***ED UP!
December 30, 2008 was my first ever real, buy tickets, go to the venue, touring concert. That was Trans Siberian Orchestra. BUT TONIGHT The Offspring are in Cleveland and Dropkick Murphys are opening! Woooo! Allen gave me one of his old shirts to wear tonight, and of course it didn't fit, so I fixed it and now it looks like this.

Anddd I made the choker. But yeah, I'm super excited for this concert. I. Heart. Offspring. So, you know, I have to buy one of their shirts now.

This was a really simple recon. This was a boy's medium t-shirt, or maybe a large. I cut off the sleeves, sewed up the sides to make the tube fit me snugly, hemmed around the sleeve holes, and cut a straight line down perpendicular to the collar to form a slitted neckline. I then poked small holes in the corners of the flaps that were formed and used scraps of t-shirt fabric to tie the corners back, around the arm bands, to form the cute, tied sleeves you see in the photos. These days I wear the shirt with the flaps un-tied, but tied to each other at the top. So there is still a slit but it covers my front and keeps me a bit warmer.


Thanks for reading, and until next time,
Happy Snipping!
-C-

A T-Shirt Recons Blog

Hello, readers!

My name is Cara, and I've started this blog as a way to share more of my t-shirt recons with the world. I do t-shirt recon videos on my YouTube channel, but I don't do them very often, and there are recons I've done without recording them. Since my YouTube is very eclectic, I thought it would be nice for my t-shirt recon enthusiast viewers to have a place to come to where I only talk about t-shirt reconstruction.

Until next time,
Happy Snipping!