Free t-shirt SVG files

What a blank shirt shape is for

These are pictures of shirts, not designs to go on one. People use them to plan a print before cutting vinyl: drop the outline or the front and back template into your software, lay your design on the chest and you can judge its size and position. They also make price tags, laundry room signs, wardrobe labels, washing line bunting and party invitations.

On the detailed shirts the seams are slots about 1.5 mm wide that stop short of the edge, so the neck rib, cuffs and hem show up without cutting the shirt apart. If you only need the shape, use the silhouette.

Placing a design on a real shirt

The alignment ruler is the one working tool in the set. Cut it from stiff card, acrylic or thin wood at 254 mm wide. The curved top bar rests against the bottom of the collar, the slot down the stem marks the centre line of the shirt, and the notches count half inches down the chest and out to each side. The first notch on the stem is an inch and a half below the collar, so three inches, a common starting point for an adult chest design, is the fourth notch down.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions