Scary Cat T-Shirt

I've been waiting since January to share the remaking of this Halloween T-shirt I got last year, and now that it's finally October, I can!

It's a little graphic tee with a tiny (rather weird-looking) cat and the caption "Scary Cat." Well, I love any cat, no matter how weird-looking, so when I found it in a lot of 4 on eBay for 9.95, I absolutely had to have it. It didn't hurt that one of the other shirts in the lot featured an even cuter cat! The shirt on the top right turned out to be old and scruffy and poorly fitting and not really my style anyway, so I donated it, but the other two tops have enjoyed lots of success in my wardrobe. But let's talk about the scary cat.

I'm always excited to dress for the season, but sadly, like many of the secondhand T-shirts I find these days, it had the baby-doll cut of a bygone era, and it was a size too large, so not flattering at all!

I started by unstitching the bottom hem. Sometimes I do this as a really quick and dirty way of lengthening my clothes, but it wasn't enough this time.

However, before adding any more length, I needed to reduce some girth, which I did by taking in the last few inches of the side seams and then trimming away the excess fabric.

For adding to the length, I decided to go with a nice strong Halloweeny black. I got this poor T-shirt at a conference a few years ago, and after many failed attempts to make it look more "cute," the only thing it was good for was scraps.

I cut off the bottom hem and attached it right to the raw edge of my new T-shirt, adding almost 2 inches to the length and saving myself the bother of sewing a new hem.

After this, I felt the bottom strip stood out like a sore thumb, so I decided to similarly alter the neckline.

I drew a line around the original collar and cut it off, then used more of the conference shirt as a bias tape to bind the raw edge. This part was hard, so I didn't take any pictures!

I'm really pleased at how this project turned out. When I started out, the tiny cat seemed almost drowned in the vast expanse of orange on the shirt. With the addition of the black trim, I think the cat fits in better...and the shirt fits better too!