- Welcome everybody, I am TockCustom.
And on this video we're gonna show you
how to tailor a button down shirt just like we made
in our last video.
If you missed that, feel free to go back and watch that.
Otherwise, if you have some shirts that you want
to be a little bit more fitted,
we're gonna show you how to do that right now.
And also at the end of the video, I'll show you
how to do a long sleeve dress shirt that has cuffs.
The steps are pretty much the same,
but I will show you what is different with that.
Now, all you're gonna need
to get started is whatever button down shirt
or dress shirt that you want to tailor to yourself.
You'll need a sewing machine, some scissors,
and some thread.
Alright, so our first step to tailoring a shirt is we have
to put it on and button it up.
Now in this shirt, I wanna bring it in about an inch
and a half on either side
so that I've got a much more narrow fit.
So we're gonna start at the sleeve through the armpit
and all the way down to the bottom.
But before we do that, we have
to open our rolled hem at the end of the sleeve
and at the bottom of our side seam.
So I'm gonna show you how to do that right now.
Now we're gonna take about an inch of fabric out
of this shirt on either side.
So I want to take out about two inches of my rolled hem.
So I'm just gonna pop these stitches
and then lay this out flat.
So I've taken about an inch off either side
of this center seam of our rolled hem,
and that should open this up so that we can lay this flat.
I'm gonna end up ironing this,
and then we should be able to see our nice raw edge.
And this is exactly what we need to do on either sleeve
and the bottoms of our shirt.
So I'm gonna do all four of those parts right now.
Alright, so I've got all
of my rolled hems open about two inches on either sleeve
and two inches at the bottom of each of my side seams here.
So now I'm gonna press these that they're open
so that they're easier to work with.
Now, just so you can see how this is gonna work,
I'm just gonna press this open and then use my iron
to make sure this all lays nice and flat.
And this is really gonna help us
when we end up tailoring these seams of our shirt.
Alright, so now you should have something
that looks like that.
And I'm gonna do this with the other three seams
so that these are all nice and open and flat like that.
Alright, so my hems on my sleeves
and the bottoms are all open and pressed, so that lays flat.
So at this point,
we're gonna wanna turn our shirt inside out
and lay it flat on our table.
Alright, so now I've got my shirt inside out
and this is the end of my left sleeve through the armpit
and all the way down to the bottom.
And you should be able to see the raw edges
since we opened up that hem.
Now I want to take this in about an inch on either side.
So I'm just gonna kind of eyeball
and mark this with white chalk.
I don't know if you can see this,
but this is just kind of a reference for me
so that I know roughly where my stitches are gonna go
and try to keep your fabric nice and flat.
So it should look like that.
I don't need to pin this at all.
I'm just gonna take this right over to my sewing machine
and sew from the bottom all the way up
to the end of the sleeve there.
Alright, so we're at our sewing machine
and because this is a woven fabric,
we can just do a regular straight stitch,
which is a lot easier.
Now before we start, it's really important
that you line up the two raw edges.
If these are uneven like that,
it's not gonna come together well.
So you wanna make sure that the raw edges
of your fabric are perfectly flushed
with each other like this.
Now as I feed this into my machine,
I want to take out an inch of fabric
from where we did our original seam here.
So I'm gonna line up this stitch
with the one inch mark on our plate right here.
So that's what we're looking to do.
Now I've got this all nice and flush.
Everything looks good.
So I'm gonna do a front and back stitch.
(sewing machine whirring)
And now all I have to do
is just follow this entire stitch all the way down
to the bottom of the shirt
following this one inch seam allowance
from this black stitch right here.
Alright, now as I get close to the bottom,
I also wanna make sure that the two raw edges
of fabric at the very bottom are also perfectly flushed
so that we've got a nice even seam.
Finished with a back stitch and cut my thread
and we are done with one side.
So now I'm gonna do the other side real quick
and show you what happens next.
Alright, so now you should have something
that looks like this here.
So here was our original seam and here is our new seam.
So normally I would just take this over
to my serger like we did on the original end
and just serge the whole thing
and it would trim it and clean it up.
But I'm going to show you how to cut it
and do a zigzag stitch for those of you
who don't have a serger.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna trim this
so that the raw seam is about maybe half an inch
or so from our new seam that we just sewed.
Alright, so we've got our seams trimmed,
and this is a good length for us to work with
for a zigzag stitch.
And again, when you use a serger or an overlock machine,
it's gonna lock all these up because with any woven fabric,
you're gonna get loose threads like this
if you just lightly tug on it.
We don't want that.
So I'm gonna show you
how to clean this up without a serger
so that you've got nice clean seams on the inside.
Now the first part of overlocking
with a zigzag stitch is you have to figure out
where your zigzag stitch is on your machine.
This has a digital touch screen,
so I know this is my zigzag stitch here.
And what I want to do is I'm gonna modify the zigzag stitch.
So this tells me how wide the stitch is gonna be,
and this tells me how long the stitch is gonna be.
So I want this to be as wide as possible,
which I think is seven millimeters wide.
And I'm gonna keep this at about 1.6 millimeters in length
and you'll kind of see how that looks as we do this.
Now that we have our zigzag set the way that we want it to,
the way this is gonna work
is we're gonna do one stitch off the fabric
and then one stitch on the fabric but I want to start on.
Currently my needle is on the right side of my machine,
so I'm gonna use my hand wheel to go all the way down
and when this comes up,
it's gonna snap to the left like that.
So now what I want to do is our first stitch is gonna start
on the fabric,
and I'm gonna use my hand wheel to make sure
that the second stitch is going off the edge of that fabric.
When I go all the way down,
it should just barely be off like that.
So as I do a front stitch
and a back stitch, I'm gonna go all the way off the edge,
almost off the edge.
Alright, so as I follow the seam, what's gonna happen
is every other stitch is gonna go off the edge of the fabric
and it's gonna lock any frayed
or loose threads to the inside of that seam
so that it stays nice and clean,
kind of like an overlock machine, but much more simplified.
And I'm gonna just go all the way down from the edge
of the sleeve all the way down to the bottom of the shirt.
Alright, so as I get to the bottom,
I'm gonna cut my thread
and you should have something that looks like this.
And this zigzag is going to keep all
of this raw fabric from fraying,
and it doesn't look quite as pretty as a serge seam,
but it will keep your fabric from fraying
and you're not gonna get loose threads
or not nearly as many if you didn't do this at all.
So I'm gonna clean this up a little bit
and then I'll show you what's next.
Alright, so when you're done,
you should have something that looks like this.
And I know it looks kind of messy,
but all I need to do is just trim off any bulk right there
in any loose threads.
And if I pull this real tight,
the hem should actually kind of start to reform by itself.
And I'm just gonna kind of tuck that in.
And then I'm gonna press this with my iron
and it should just kind of line up with the previous hem
that was in there before we took it apart like that.
Okay, so I'm just pressing our rolled hem back into shape
just like it was before we opened this up and tailored it.
And I'm just gonna do a start
and back stitch here, stitch across the rolled hem
and end here by doing another back stitch.
And that's gonna close that up.
We're gonna do this on both the side seams
and both the sleeves
and then we are actually done with tailoring our shirt.
Okay, so here is how our new hem looks
as we just kind of restitched that together.
And I'm just going to trim any loose threads
that we have from the outside first.
And then I'm gonna flip this and look at the inside.
And I'm gonna trim any loose threads from the inside.
And when you're kind of recovering
or repairing stitches, it's usually a good idea
to use some kind of a fabric glue.
So I'm gonna use some fray check here.
And I'm gonna put a couple of drops there where we started
and ended those stitches.
Alright, so now that we got some fray check on there,
that's gonna look nice and clean on the inside
and the outside, just like that.
And it's not gonna fall apart in the wash
or anything like that.
Alright, now before we try on our new tailored shirt,
I did mention that I was gonna just quickly go over
how you would do this with a long sleeve dress shirt.
And I'm not even gonna do a full demo
'cause I don't need to.
But if you were tailoring
a long sleeve dress shirt like this with a cuff,
you would do everything exactly the same
where you unhemmed the bottom
and then you're gonna stitch up through the armpit here.
And then when you got close to your cuff,
what you would do is you would follow this one inch or so
or whatever you end up tailoring.
And then as you get close to the cuff, you get closer
and closer to your original seam
and you're just gonna blend in
with the original seam about right here
so that it's completely seamless.
You'd end up trimming out any extra fabric and then serging
or zigzagging over that raw edge like that.
Now after you've tailored your dress shirt,
if you find that the cuff is still too big
around your wrist, all you'd have to do is take your button,
pop out the stitches, move it in about half an inch
or an inch, or however much you need
to resow your button a little bit into the cuff right there.
And everything is gonna work out perfectly just like it did
with the other shirt that we just finished.
Okay, so as I try this on, I can tell
that this is fitting a lot better.
It's not quite as dramatic as the t-shirt that we did,
but as I look at my sleeve, my armpit, down the flank
and around the hips, it feels a little bit tighter
and more narrow.
So if it looks like I'm wearing
a custom handmade tailored shirt,
that's exactly what I'm wearing.
Hopefully this helped you guys tailor your own shirts
or dress shirts.
If you have any questions,
please let me know in the comments.
Otherwise, thank you so much for watching.
Thank all of you for your support
and I will see you in the next video.