Suns Out Guns Out: A DIY Muscle Tee

I recently went to my favourite thrift store (Value Village) to search for some goodies and found this awesome tee and had to do something with it (it has a bald eagle flying over jagged rocks and a waterfall!) and with my last post still fresh in my hippocampus, the other obvious thing to do was remove the sleeves and go guns out: make a muscle tee!

What you need:

• An iron and an ironing board (because you should always iron any fabric you are about to cut)
• A rotary cutter or scissors
• A cutting board (only if you are using a rotary cutter)
• Fabric chalk or pins to mark where you want to cut (or a big ol' set of cojones if you want to cut without any)
• Freshly shaved underarm
• And a T-SHIRT, duh!

This is, quite frankly, a very simple DIY -- all you have to do is take a t-shirt and cut off its sleeves -- so please don't think I'm trying to insult your intelligence by posting a how-to. I'm doing this to show off A. this sweet t-shirt (a bald eagle flying over a waterfall!) and B. a tool that I highly suggest you acquire if you ever plan on cutting fabric in your DIY endeavors: a rotary cutter.

I recently procured one (oh hi mom, yes, I sniped this from your laundry room) and it's so much better than using scissors! It cuts through multiple layers of fabric, there are no jagged edges like the ones you would get with scissors, and it knocks so much time off of your various projects -- imagine fringing a t-shirt or scarf with this bitch! See it in ironic still photographic action and try it at home:

Fold your t-shirt in half, place it on your cutting board, and cut. The magic of the rotary cutter is that it will get through all 4 layers of fabric, the results will be symmetrical, and the cut will be smooth.

If you're using scissors, mark your t-shirt with fabric chalk or pins, and then cut. Because you'll be cutting much more slowly with scissors, there's a bigger risk for the fabric to slip, so I suggest using pins to hold everything together.

Open your t-shirt and go over your cuts, to make sure the cutter got through all the way, or to trim off any...hang nails, for lack of a better term. This won't really be an issue if you're using scissors, or if your rotary cutter is sharp enough.

Or, instead of the above, you can put on your best Harry Caray voice and do this instead:

(And you wonder why I don't do video blogs.)

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