Adventures in shirt alterations - slimming the sleeve and body

[j]

Before I toss this shirt I wanted to take a couple quick pictures of my attempt to slim a shirt down in the sleeve and the body. Considering how far off my shoulder the shoulder seam is, I think the results are quite good. It pulls at the chest a little as you can see, but I think if the shoulder seam were up where it should be, that would be somewhat minimized. I tried to take it in as much as I could and still have it fit comfortably, and here's the result.

"Before" side (no work done - HUGE):

After side:

As you can see I slightly overdid the reduction in the body. If I had done the same on the other side I might not be able to button it.

The procedure was simply to sew up from the bottom (I started at the waist) through the armhole and up the sleeve, tapering in near the cuff. If I had wanted to finish the job I would have done the seam differently, although I don't know my machine is even capable of a good felled seam on a sleeve. Anyway, for people wanting to see how that is done, here you go.

 

[Aaron]

J, are you able to raise your arm at all? I recently had a shirt given to me that had an amazing collar but could literally fit two of me in the body. I went to my alterations lady and unfortunately I surpassed the limits of tailoring. Now the arm is semi-slim and I have very little range of motion and the body is still way too big. I'm surprised you are able to get in and out of the shirt.

A.

 

[Jovan]

One of my shirts is almost that slim (and I specified 4-6" of movement room...). I think it got more snug with washing and drying, or I've just gained some weight.