Despite the rule that saves me heaps of money and prevents me from having unhealthy life approaches, I still occasionally take home things I'm certain I can fix. 

This time it's a $5 shirt from Goodwill that had polka dots that look like stars to me, and I mean really?  5 bucks?  I can definitely justify making it a project shirt if it's so cheap and so beautiful.

Side note, I'm a terrible person to pay attention to if you have the pesky issue of taking home "fixer-uppers".  I do not follow my rule.

My first course of attack was to take in the shirt by half an inch on each side repeatedly until the body started actually fitting closer to my actual form.

When narrowing down the sleeves of a garment be especially careful not to make the sleeves too small.  Wrists tend to be smaller on everyone, and shirts typically account for that.  At a certain point for my tailoring I ran my stitch lines into the ones I made before.  This makes it so that the sleeve is the same size for around your elbow as it is around your distal forearm and close to your wrist.  

These adjustments alone were enough to make the shirt more flattering to my shape and save me from drowning in inexpensive shirt (what a way to go), but these alterations further illustrated that the shoulders were woefully out of place and needed to be promptly relocated for maximum flattery.

I took in nearly two inches for this- taking fabric only from the shoulder, and none out of the sleeve to ensure that they would still be a proper length.

The only issue with this dramatic of difference was that it is difficult to take that same amount all the way around the seam where the main body of the shirt connects to the sleeves.  Which would be even more problematic since it was disrupt the cut of the shirt and likely make it bunch around the arm in a horrifically gross way.  I wanted better for this shirt.  

Instead, I ran pleats down from the shoulders in the front and back to create sharp lines.  This served two purposes:

One, it took care of the excess fabric without creating repulsive bunching atrosities;

And two, it makes the shirt lend itself more to my body shape.  It gives me accents and shaping in what was formerly a shapeless sack.  

The fit is now drastically different, and no longer looks like the oversized men's shirt that it was.  It doesn't cling to me, but it still lends itself to my body to create an elegant figure.

So at the end of the day, no- you really shouldn't take home every single thing that is in dire need of your help, but occasionally you get a sweet shirt that no one could fathom once tried to swallow you.  They're too busy appreciating that you're covered in stars.

Life is a fun mystery.  

Stay sweet, stay crafty, and stay tuned.