Recently, my local 99 Cent Only store has been selling clothing from a small rack. Two months ago I found this Sandy Starkman shirt in size Small. I knew it wouldn’t fit around my hips, but it was too cute and funky to pass up for 99 cents. I could see that it had possibilities!

Apparently, the shirt was originally from a Goodwill store somewhere, and was part of a remainders bulk purchase by Oren’s Replay, Inc. I Googled them, and they are a liquidation company, selling primarily at 99 Cent Only stores.

With my trusty seam ripper in hand, I took off the collar, sleeves, and cuffs. I also ripped out the side seams and the hems. I took a sleeve, folded it right sides together, and drew this diagonal chalk line. I cut on the chalk line. I then used the first sleeve as a pattern for the second.

Then I hemmed the sleeve caps, because they would now be at the bottom edge of the shirt.

You can see that the shirt is a bit longer than the inserted upside down sleeves, but I consider that a design element. I had ripped out the shirt hems because I didn’t like the thread color, and the stitching was a bit wonky. I re-hemmed the front and back of the shirt before attaching the inverted sleeves to the side seams. I took the sleeves off a thrifted purple silk shirt and used them to replace the sleeves. I used scraps from the sleeve trimming to make a neck band.

Here is the back view, which I did not change. Now this shirt fits comfortably and it’s more my style. All for 99 cents and a little bit of time and ingenuity!