Little T-shirts
Apr. 11th, 2014 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizabeth_mnI made F a bunch of new T-shirts this week.
(She said this is her "normal face." I just could not make this stuff up.)
Sewing T-shirts at home is not something I do a lot of, mostly just for The Girl. Since T-shirts are so cheap these days they may as well be disposable, it doesn't make much sense to buy knit fabrics for 10-20 bucks a yard and make my own. So I only do it if I can meet at least one, preferably two, of the following conditions:
- I am upcycling an existing garment
- The fabric is really unusual
- I have a specific design or look I am trying to achieve
- I absolutely cannot find a single thing in the stores that fits
For F, I have a hard time finding clothes that fit because she is long and skinny, so pants that fit at the waist are ridiculously short. Shirts are easier because they just hang off the shoulders, but sometimes they are too short. I tend to buy the plain and boring ones but this time I wanted something more unique and cute.
I started with a pile of old shirts from my closet. Some I bought new for cheap at Old Navy, some were from Goodwill. For one reason or another, none of them really fit me right. So I cut them up to make new shirts for F! She is really at the high end of sizing for this; any bigger and I would have to just take the shirt in, or carefully trim around the seams, to size it down for her.
As it is, I was able to align the pattern with the shirt's existing hem (to avoid hemming!) and cut the body from the front and back, then I cut the sleeve from the upper part of the original sleeve. I was unable to re-use the sleeve hems because the middle of the sleeve was't wide enough for the new pattern's sleeve cap. One shirt was pretty small, so I just cut sleeves from the body and re-used the existing sleeve ends as cuffs. Hemming knits is annoying, so for 3 of them using cuffs allowed me to avoid hemming the sleeves. I also cut neckbands from each shirt's upper back section. You want a Tshirt neckband to be about 25% smaller than the shirt's neck opening, so there was plenty of fabric for this. Then when you apply the band, stretch as you sew to amke it fit.
After I cut out as many pieces as I could salvage, I mixed them all up to get several fabrics in each shirt. I used the Imke pattern from the book Sewing Clothes Kids Love, and this is suggested. I think this kind of mixed-up, more is more look is probably kind of old these days, but whatever. I like it.
Plus I could maximize my cool fabrics by mixing them with plain.
A word about the Imke pattern, though. The chest runs HUGE. I think this is probably intentional, to add growing room, but still. Plus the neckline is ENORMOUS. It was also very short. I had to add 2" in length. And yeah, I do like to make kid shirts long, but the width vs length on this pattern just seemed disproportionate. I love a more fitted look, too, like Made By Rae's Flashback Skinny Tee, but it would be outgrown so fast, and I just can't bear that. So after my test version (not shown because it's boring) I left the size as is, added a little length, raised the neckline, and went for it.
So. On to the sewing.
Mixing up the pieces into piles.
I used clear elastic to stabilize the shoulder seams (when I remembered to).
When re-using a hem, or when you hem before seaming, you are left with a serger thread tail that doesn't get overlapped by another seam. My favorite way to deal with this is to thread it into a large needle and sew it into the seam. You can also use Fray Check and just trim it, but that seems like such a hassle to me.
The first one again.
This neckline is over an inch higher in front and an inch narrower at the sides than the original Imke pattern. And it's still big. She tends to pull at necklines if they are wide, and stretch them over her shoulders, which makes me so crazy! So it ended up even narrower on the next few.
The other four, done!
These were so quick and fun! Oh, and if anyone is wondering why I chose April to make new long-sleeved shirts, please know that it has been only three days since I was pretty sure all the snow had melted in my yard. So yeah, still chilly.
(She said this is her "normal face." I just could not make this stuff up.)
Sewing T-shirts at home is not something I do a lot of, mostly just for The Girl. Since T-shirts are so cheap these days they may as well be disposable, it doesn't make much sense to buy knit fabrics for 10-20 bucks a yard and make my own. So I only do it if I can meet at least one, preferably two, of the following conditions:
- I am upcycling an existing garment
- The fabric is really unusual
- I have a specific design or look I am trying to achieve
- I absolutely cannot find a single thing in the stores that fits
For F, I have a hard time finding clothes that fit because she is long and skinny, so pants that fit at the waist are ridiculously short. Shirts are easier because they just hang off the shoulders, but sometimes they are too short. I tend to buy the plain and boring ones but this time I wanted something more unique and cute.
I started with a pile of old shirts from my closet. Some I bought new for cheap at Old Navy, some were from Goodwill. For one reason or another, none of them really fit me right. So I cut them up to make new shirts for F! She is really at the high end of sizing for this; any bigger and I would have to just take the shirt in, or carefully trim around the seams, to size it down for her.
As it is, I was able to align the pattern with the shirt's existing hem (to avoid hemming!) and cut the body from the front and back, then I cut the sleeve from the upper part of the original sleeve. I was unable to re-use the sleeve hems because the middle of the sleeve was't wide enough for the new pattern's sleeve cap. One shirt was pretty small, so I just cut sleeves from the body and re-used the existing sleeve ends as cuffs. Hemming knits is annoying, so for 3 of them using cuffs allowed me to avoid hemming the sleeves. I also cut neckbands from each shirt's upper back section. You want a Tshirt neckband to be about 25% smaller than the shirt's neck opening, so there was plenty of fabric for this. Then when you apply the band, stretch as you sew to amke it fit.
After I cut out as many pieces as I could salvage, I mixed them all up to get several fabrics in each shirt. I used the Imke pattern from the book Sewing Clothes Kids Love, and this is suggested. I think this kind of mixed-up, more is more look is probably kind of old these days, but whatever. I like it.
Plus I could maximize my cool fabrics by mixing them with plain.
A word about the Imke pattern, though. The chest runs HUGE. I think this is probably intentional, to add growing room, but still. Plus the neckline is ENORMOUS. It was also very short. I had to add 2" in length. And yeah, I do like to make kid shirts long, but the width vs length on this pattern just seemed disproportionate. I love a more fitted look, too, like Made By Rae's Flashback Skinny Tee, but it would be outgrown so fast, and I just can't bear that. So after my test version (not shown because it's boring) I left the size as is, added a little length, raised the neckline, and went for it.
So. On to the sewing.
Mixing up the pieces into piles.
I used clear elastic to stabilize the shoulder seams (when I remembered to).
When re-using a hem, or when you hem before seaming, you are left with a serger thread tail that doesn't get overlapped by another seam. My favorite way to deal with this is to thread it into a large needle and sew it into the seam. You can also use Fray Check and just trim it, but that seems like such a hassle to me.
The first one again.
This neckline is over an inch higher in front and an inch narrower at the sides than the original Imke pattern. And it's still big. She tends to pull at necklines if they are wide, and stretch them over her shoulders, which makes me so crazy! So it ended up even narrower on the next few.
The other four, done!
These were so quick and fun! Oh, and if anyone is wondering why I chose April to make new long-sleeved shirts, please know that it has been only three days since I was pretty sure all the snow had melted in my yard. So yeah, still chilly.
