How to Cut a Sweatshirt to Make it Off the Shoulder

It's easy and fast to make a DIY off the shoulder sweatshirt, but I understand it can be intimidating to know exactly where to cut. 

In this tutorial I'll be sharing my tips on how to cut a sweatshirt to make it off the shoulder - a question I get asked a surprising amount. 

I wear these and make these DIY off the sweatshirts often because they're inexpensive to buy and easy to add HTV, printable heat transfers, and ready to press heat press transfers to. 

I would highly suggest adding the design to the crewneck sweatshirt first. If you use the same crewneck sweatshirts I use, you'll have an easy time finding the center of shirt based off the front center "V". Otherwise use the fold in half and press method to easily find the center. 

Press on the design and then you're ready to cut an off the shoulder sweatshirt. 

Lay the shirt flat on a table. 

If you want the sweatshirt to fall off one shoulder, you'll start the cut on one side right outside the neckline and aim for about half way between the neck and shoulder seam on the other side. 

That will give you this kind of look

If you want to cut a sweatshirt neckline to make it just a lower cut, you will want to start and end in the same spot on each side. 

That will give you this kind of a look..

Use fabric scissors to make a small snip to mark the starting and ending points. 

Then cut through BOTH the front and back layers at the same time in a curve staying close to the neckline. 

After you have cut the neckline off the sweatshirt stretch it a bit to encourage it to curl. It will curl more once you wash and dry it. 

I also like to make these sweatshirts a bit more cropped..but this is just personal preference of course. To cut a cropped sweatshirt I cut the bottom band off..right above the band. Again I cut through both the back and front of the shirt at the same time. 

Cutting right above the band is probably not short enough for my teenage daughter, but this 40 year old isn't trying to show any mid drift.  My suggestion is, if you are making a DIY cropped sweatshirt, cut the bottom off and then try it on to see if you want to cut off more. 

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