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...
