Boys T-Shirt Tutorial

So this week I decided Mr. J needed a new tshirt. I saw a free printable pattern over on MADE, during her Celebrate the Boy celebration this year. The pattern can be found HERE. I changed the pattern a little bit to fit our needs.

See the left side, with the printed out pattern? Those dots are supposed to be one on top of the other to complete the pattern, I know my son, he is built like me, with a long torso, so I took a chance and just lined the bottom of one paper to the top of the other, extending the length of the shirt. Second I grabbed a existing shirt that he loves to wear, that is a little long, (after folding in half as pattern pieces are half the top anyway) lined them up shoulder to shoulder and saw it was PERFECT. just a teeny bit longer once seam allowances are considered and felt like it was GOOD TO GO!

I finished cutting all the pieces out.

Then got down to business!!!

Here's my fabric choices, the stripe will be the body, the light gray is a nice stretch ribbed knit, that will bet he neck ribbing.

Next we cut out all fabric pieces, try to line the bottoms of the shirt (seam) up correctly as you cut, I knew they're each be the end of the black stripe, this way when sewing it should all line up all the way to the top. I'm no expert at making the lines perfect, but I try hard, I'm far too OCD to have my child walk around with stripes that don't line up right.

The instructions Dana over at MADE gave are perfect, I followed them to a T. First we line up the shoulders, right sides together and sew the very top, this is a very quick step. For this shirt I chose to NOT use the serger, and use a regular sewing machine, it worked GREAT!

Here's the neck ribbing sewn on, totally forgot to take some pictures during the process, PLEASE follow her instructions on the link to pull, tug and lots of pinning, I've been doing this type of neckline with ribbing for two years now, learned another way first, which works, but hers are by FAR easier, I won't go any other way from now on.  It leaves less room for error too!

Here's the shirt after I attached one sleeve. I have no idea how I cut the fabric to line up almost exactly for the sleeves, that was a mistake, a HAPPY mistake.

After both sleeves were on I needed to hem them, I wasn't using a existing shirt with hem, so I sewed those up, then lined right sides together, and started at the end of the sleeve, all the way to the bottom, 3/4in allowance. The bottom hem I used a widened zig zag, it's not as professional as a double needle or cover stitch but it stretches for Mr J to easily get the shirt on and off, and lets face it, 3 kids, him being a 3yr old demanding boy, if he can do ONE step of the day by getting dressed and save me that chore I'm happy.

And VOILA! The boy and his basic Tshirt, I think it came out perfect! Because of that, I made him three more over the weekend.