Raglan Tshirt Pattern ( 2T) and Tutorial

Here is a really fun boy print from Clothworks. Its called City Streets by Jamie Wood. When I received the fabric, the first thing that came to my mind was Raglan Tshirts. However, all the TShirts need to have some stretch in them which is not present in cotton wovens. I kept thinking about how I could use the prints I liked so much and still have the flexibility of TShirts. Finally I found the answer, I just need to mix in some knits and we will be good to go. So I made one Raglan Tee, and then I made some more, and I love them all.

Estimated time: 1 hour  
Complexity: Beginner  
Supplies: Half yard City Streets Print from Clothworks ( SKU- Y0980-31) Half yard Knit fabric in coordinating color  
Pattern: Download the pdf pattern for Raglan Tshirt ( size -2T). Print on 8.5 inch X11 inch paper with no margin.

The pattern should look like this once you put the pages together. Sewing margin : 3/8 inch  
Construction:
 

1. Cut out the pattern pieces

2. Sleeves and body are sewn together just like in peasant dresses tutorial ( look at the step 2).

3. Cut out the neckbands and cuffs for the sleeves. The rule of thumb I use is that they are two-third+1 inch of the length we need to cover and 3 inches wide.

4. Sew the shorter ends( right sides together)

5. Fold in half onto themselves.

6. Align the raw edges of the band and the sleeves, pin and sew.

7. Turn out!

8. Do the same for the neckline.

9. I had also added a knit fabric band at the bottom of the first shirt I made. For that I took a 5 inch wide band about two inch shorter than the hem length and sew it at the hem in the same way as we did the cuffs and neck band. In the second shirt I just folded the hemline twice to hem it. You could do whichever way you like better but if you are planning on adding a band at the bottom, remove the bottom 2 inches from the pattern to allow for the extra length.

Rinse and repeat

Check out my Free Sewing Tutorials at Blooms And Bugs for more sewing patterns and ideas for your kids and yourself.

Tutorial: Octoberize that Tee

This is a tutorial that I did a couple of weeks back at Ricochet and Away. I'm sharing it with you all here because I think its a good one for fall.Enjoy!

For this post I wanted to bring you something that would be useful to almost everyone. You know how we all are left with Tees at the end of the summer, they look and fit great but they are half sleeved, so they can't be used during the fall and winter. By the time summer rolls back again, they're too short already.
I have found myself with a pile of half sleeved clothes and wondering...Gosh!! these clothes are so nice, I wish I could use them somehow, until it hit me...adding sleeves shouldn't be that hard. After all, I do it all the time for the clothes I sew from scratch. Adding just the sleeves would be a lot more easier..and quicker.

So here's a tutorial on adding sleeves to your little one's ( or your own) tees and then adding just a little more detail to bind it all together. I'm calling it Octoberizing that Tee because a full sleeved version will be just right for the weather in the beginning of fall and also because the colors are just right for October.


Supplies ( 2 year old size)

1 half sleeved Tshirt
1 XL Tshirt in a contrasting color ( or any knit fabric will do - using T shirt was much quicker because I didn't have to hem)

Adding the full sleeves:

Cut off the sleeves from the adult tee.

Lay the small Tee straight and place the sleeves from the big tee next to the small Tee sleeves. Make sure that both the Tee sleeves and the new sleeves make a straight line and overlap about half inch. Now measure from the shoulders of little Tee to the hem of sleeves of big Tee, this is how long your final sleeve will be. Compare it with the sleeve length needed for your child.If this is too big, increase the overlap to reduce the length. If it is too small you have two options - 1 You can pick open the hem of sleeves, this will give you one extra inch. you could do rolled hems on the sleeves later.
Another option is to use T-shirt body, or a knit fabric instead of sleeves. This is not very complicated either. Just fold a knit fabric along the width and use it the same way I'm showing you using the existing sleeves. You just have to hem these sleeves...that's all.

Once you have determined the correct length you have to determine the width. What we want to do is make an addition to the sleeve that is as wide as the existing sleeve's end in and then it tapers off following natural shape of arm.
So you will measure the width using the hem of existing sleeve and add 1 inch to it for sewing margins.

Do the same for the other sleeve.

Now fold each sleeve in half along the width ( right sides together) and sew a seam on the side using up sewing margins. Repeat for the other sleeve.

Turn this tube of sleeve inside out. Now line it up with the real sleeve as shown above. Now gently slide the wider end of new sleeve into the existing sleeve. Straighten both the sleeves using your hand. Make sure the new sleeve is fitting the old sleeve evenly. Use hand basting or pins to hold it in place.

Sew a seam along the joint of the new and old sleeves to fix it in place.
Note: It is easier to go from the neckline to sew this seam, at least it was for me.
Repeat for the other sleeve.

Ta da! Your tee has full sleeves now...smile!



Adding contrasting stripes at the front.

Cut two rectangles from the contrasting knit of width equal to the width of Tee and length = 5 inches. Place them one over the other and then onto the Tee at a position you like.

Pin or hand-baste these to make sure they stay in their place.

Now sew parallel lines along the hand-basting. Mine are about 5/8 inch apart. You can use your sewing machine foot as a guide to get evenly spaces lines.

Once you're done sewing, its time to cut. Cut between the seams, Making sure you're cutting only the extra layers and not the Tshirt itself. I used a small scissor to do this. Try to stay in the center between two seams but you don't have to be precise. We are taking advantage of the fact that knits don't fray. So we can leave the cut edges raw.

Congratulations! You have successfully Octoberized your Tee. Right now the orange is looking like a color-block at the front, but these knit strips will curl up in the wash.

So they look more like ruffled stripes of orange and white. For more pizazz you could use more layers, and also graded color layers. So when you cut, you will see colors of different intensity. I haven't done that but I think it would look cool.


PS: Here's a very helpful comment from Amanda:

"I've been doing this with my son's shirts for a couple of years. Since toddler/preschooler shirts are rather small, it's hard to sew the fabric on as a tube. I open out the underarm seam on the t-shirt so I can sew on the new sleeve as a flat piece of fabric, then turn inside out and resew the underarm seam all the way to the cuff. I cut the arm extensions from too-small knit pants sometimes-- they often already have a ribbed cuff."


Great comment Amanda! I'm sure it will be helpful to many readers. I'll also try it this way.

Sew Easy- Part 11 - Nordic Prince TShirt

You can read the story behind this series and the first part here. Click here to read the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh edition, eighth, ninth and tenth of this series.

So H left and interesting comment on my Bottoms Up First post. She says "wonderful! super easy and easy to choose fabric for a boy - oh yes - some of us sewers have boys too you know!! :)". I know, and I also know it is really tough to make things for little guys in our lives. With that in mind I was thinking about some more designs which would work for both girls and boys.
Since my little monkey needed some full sleeved tops for the fall-winter season, I was slicing and dicing some designs in my head and I kept on coming back to the sleeve part again and again. Why does it have to be such a long process, there has to be a better way of doing it. Finally I thought of this design and decided to give it a try.
I like how it turned out, it fits more like a sweater/pullover but it does provide the protection of full-sleeved tee.


I'm calling it Nordic Prince Tee - Just because I can't shake this name off my head. Also, because the front panel looks a bit like tuxedo...like something a prince would wear...going to....ummm...a picnic. No? Lets just say that this is my blog and I get to name things here, so we're calling this "Nordic Prince Tee".

So H, hope you like this one and would make one for your boys.


Supplies:

1. Navy blue knit fabric - 1 yd.
2. Ivory knit - preferably ribbed knit - 10 inches
3. Pleated Lace trim - 30 inches
4. A well fitting tee for measurements


Construction:

Fold the knit fabric in two layers, now fold it in half along the width.
Now lets fold the Tee in half along the width. Now place the tee over the fabric.
Now cut along the silhouette of the Tshirt.There are few things to be kept in mind here:
1. Leave the sewing margins
2. Near armhole just make the curve rounded, instead of abrupt.
3. Leave the cuffs and neckband out of your cut. We will be attaching them separately. ( In the picture you see my sleeves are cut upto the cuffs. That is because I wanted to make the sleeves longer than the existing TShirt.
4. The neck should be cut along the neckline in the back. To be precise, you should cut from where the neckband is sewn on the Tshirt. Because you will be adding a neckband to the Tee as well.

Here're both layers after cutting. Now lets separate them.

Cut one of the layers a little deeper at the neckline. I just eyeballed it, but you can always use the Tshirt front neck to determine the exact depth. Again, use the neckline of the main fabric and not the neckband.
This is where my camera died on me, but I'll try to outline the construction without pics as best as I can ( pics come back again after 3-4 steps )

Preparing the tuxedo at the neck:
Measure how long and wide you want the tuxedo to be. Don't add any sewing margins, the lace we'll be sewing on it will make up for that. Lets call the length TL, and width TW.

• Cut the ivory fabric in a rectangle of  TL X TW.
• Fold it in half along the width and cut a curve on the fold at the bottom.
• This will give you a U shaped piece.
• Now cut two rectangles from the Navy fabric TL X 3 inch.
• Lay these small rectangles one over the other. Sew them in the center of ivory fabric. Sew two parallel lines on both sides of this seam about one inch away from this seam.
• Cut the navy fabric between these seams. This will give the tuxedo the chenille..ish center. Initially they will just look like the Navy blue stripes with some lines sewn on them, but they will curl up a little in the wash and would look like stripes of navy and ivory. Now sew a pleated lace all around the ivory fabric such that right side of lace is together with right side of tuxedo. Turn it out and top-stitch.

The tuxedo patch is ready. Now sew it along the center of front neck. Stitch all along the edges of tuxedo to fix it. The important thing to note here is that we didn't draw a neckline on the tuxedo, so when you will center it over the neck, some part of it will hang out. Just sew along the neckline and cut off the part that is extended beyond the neckline.

Sew a seam joining the shoulders of the Tshirt Front and back, go all the way to the end of the sleeve. Do it on both sides.(along the blue line)

Sew a seam from end of sleeves to the armholes, going all the way to the hem (along the blue line on the side seams). Do it for the other side.


This is the basic skeleton of the Tee. Now you just need to attach neck band and cuffs to it to get a basic full-sleeved Tee.

Attaching the cuffs/wristbands:

Measure the cuffs (lets call it C) and cut a rectangle of Length 4 inches and width 2/3C. So if your cuffs come out to be 6 inches your rectangle width will be
4 inches.

Now fold it in half along the width (right sides together). You will get two tubes.

Now turn half off the tube out. You will get two wristband that you need to attach to the Tee.

Slip this band on the sleeve of the Tee such that raw ends of wristband line-up with the raw ends of sleeve.
Stretch the wristband such that it fits evenly over the sleeve.

Sew a seam, along the raw edge.

Turn out! Done.

Attaching neckband:

Attaching the neck band is pretty much same as attaching the wrist-band. Measure the neckline, cut a strip of 2/3 neckline X 3 inches ( I made the wristbands longer than neckband for this Tee). Sew it into a tube. Fold out half of it. Stretch it to fit the neckline. Use pins to make sure it is stretching evenly along the whole neckline, or it will look wonky. This is one of the very few times when I actually use pins... otherwise I'm quite averse to using pins on kids clothing. Sew a seam along the raw edge. Turn out. Voila!

Hem:

Hem the Tee by turning it in twice.

Put it on the prince in your life...