The Art of the No-Sew Knotty Tee

For adolescent girls, summer camp is basically an excuse to share clothes and make-out with boys. I went to performing arts camp, so the latter was obvs difficult; the sartorial savvy of my bunkmates more than made up for the lack of eligible males. My DIY skillz were nonexistent back then: I was always jealous of the edgier girls who knew how to transform old, oversize concert tees into fitted tops, and too intimidated to ask how it was done. It only took me thirteen years to figure it out on my own. Oy.

My answer came in the form of a stellar Instructables tutorial on No-Sew Tees. I applied what I learned to an oversize concert tee purchased in the spirit of supporting the arts (i.e. my BF’s buddy’s band The Low Lows, who rock even harder than the ‘After’ shot of this shirt ).

Common sense isn’t really my bag, baby, so if using a fitted tee to guide your snipping of the big tee sounds confusing, think of it like this:

Big Tee = Paper
Little Tee = Stencil
(I used Alternative Apparel’s Mary S/S Tunic, i.e. the best long-cut tee EVER).
I folded the big tee and the little tee in half as instructed by Instructables. Then I layered little over big, lining them up to prepare for the cutting process.
Nextly, starting at the bottom hem of the paper/big shirt, I cut one horizontal slice toward the edge of the stencil/little shirt. You can cut as many or as few slices as you like as you work your way up the shirt. I’m an overachiever by nature, so I obvs made about three hundred cuts – the more knots, the better. Snippity do-dah.

The situation can get hairy about the armpit area. I highly recommend leaving the length of the sleeve of the big shirt in tact, as this will decrease your margin of error.

If you’re a scissoring badass like myself, your shirt, pre-knotting, should look something like this.

Now is the time to decide if you’re a bow person or a fringe person. If you want a more finished look, slowly back away from the scissors, and start knotting. If you’re want a raw look, snip the edges off all of your cuts first. This will give your knots a fringe-like appearance (also more chutzpah).

Behold, my final product:

I sliced the neckline and fringed the shoulders too, but to each her own.