How To Make and XL shirt into a Med.

 Lay a medium size shirt on top of your XL and use it for your basic pattern

 Cut along ONE side of the pattern shirt but on ly cut it HALF WAY.

 Now that you have one side of the shirt cut out...

 Fold it over in half and use that side as the pattern for the other side.  That will insure that both sides are the same.

 Here you see the body of the shirt folded in half and cut out

 Now you have the sleeves that are still too large.  Lay them on the medium shirt and trim the seam side to match the smaller shirt.  I just layed it on the top for this picture so you could see it but you will need to lay to the small shirt on top to measure the depth of the sleeve.  You will cut off the extra underarm sleeve using the original hem in place so you will not have to re-do the hem there.

Now sew the sleeve seam in with a knit stitch or your serger if you have one.  Mine was not available at this time so I used the knit stitch or you can use a zig zag and then a straight stitch at the inside edge.  It will look great and will not break out when the wearer stretches the shirt.

Now sew up the side seams and then make a small hem.  There you have it.  I left the neck the same.  It is not that much different but if you are going to a smaller size you will need to change the neck size by taking in the shoulder seam.  This would mean unpicking the ribbing and shortening it and re-attaching it to the neckline.  Just takes a little more time.

There you have it!  If you cannot find the right size shirt for that special person just take it in!  Or if you buy a shirt in a thrift shop that doesn't fit you can adjust it now with this method.
Good Luck!