Try-Hard Homemaker

As you can see, I started with a long-sleeved tee. I will also give instructions for shortening and finishing the sleeve with a lettuce-edge. It is easy.

1. If you have a long-sleeved tee that you want to convert to a short-sleeved tee, smooth the sleeve out flat and make sure it's laying nice and even. You will need to mark your cut-off line with a marking pencil (or use the stripes on the sleeve if you are working with a stripey tee like I was, as long as the stripes are horizontal, lol). The cut-off line should be roughly parallel to the end of the sleeve. How long you want the finished sleeve is up to you. Pin the sleeve carefully on one side of your cut-off line through both thicknesses. With a pair of sharp fabric scissors, cut carefully on your line. You will probably want to measure the sleeve length to determine where to mark the other sleeve for cutting. Then, repeat for the other side.

Here I have cut one sleeve and have the other pinned and ready for cutting. You will also notice that the waist is pinned for cutting...read on.

2. You will need to mark the t-shirt for cutting at the waist. To figure out where to cut, it's probably easiest to try it on your child and mark where it hits her bellybutton. This is where I cut mine. If you wanted a higher waist, you could cut maybe an inch higher. It's up to you. Before you cut, lay the t-shirt on a flat surface, and smooth it out and try to make sure it's nice and even. Then mark the shirt as you did the sleeves, making sure your line is parallel to the bottom of the shirt. Pin it above or below the line, through both layers, and cut carefully on the line with your fabric scissors.

Here's my t-shirt with the shortened sleeves and cut off at the waist in a nice straight line.

3. To ruffle the cut edge of your sleeves, simply zigzag around the edge on your sewing machine, stretching the edge of the sleeve gently as you go. I used a quite narrow zigzag and a stitch length of about 1 - 2.

Streeeeeeeeeetching the sleeve and zigzagging all the way around...(okay, I can't show the stretching, lol, 'cause I'm taking a photo here...

)

And voila! a nice, ruffled edge. This treatment really dresses up a t-shirt for a little girl!

4. The final thing you need to do to your t-shirt (whether or not you lettuce-edged your sleeves) is sew a stay-stitch around the waist. I use a regular stitch length (about 2 1/2 for me) and a straight stitch. Be very careful not to let the shirt stretch as you sew it; the point of the stay-stitch is to reduce stretching when you put the garment together.

Stay-stitching; careful not to let your t-shirt stretch!

5. Now we move on to dealing with the skirt. You can set your t-shirt aside for now. Take your one yard of fabric (which hopefully you have pressed nicely) and fold it carefully in half, selvedge to selvedge. Smooth it out nice and even with your hands, onto your ironing board. Press along the fold to produce a nice, crisp fold. This will be your cutting line; open the fabric out and cut carefully with your sharp scissors along this line (I find it easiest to cut accurately with the peak of the fold pointing up). You should now have two equal-size pieces of material.

Here is my piece of material, folded selvedge-to-selvedge, on my ironing board...

And here's my beautiful, porcelain hand

ironing the crease nice and flat.

6. Now we need to sew the side seams of our skirt. Lay the skirt pieces together, with their right sides facing each other. Make sure they are even. Pin the short edges of the skirt together on one side...

Pinned...

Then sew with a half-inch seam and a regular straight stitch...

Sewing a side seam...

Don't forget to do a few reverse stitches at the beginning and end of your seam so that your stitching doesn't come undone. Repeat for the other side. Now, to keep your seams from fraying and to neaten them up, I like to trim them a little closer to my seam-line (say, about a 1/4-inch out)...

Trimming...

...and then zigzag the edge on the machine, using a medium zigzag and a fairly close stitch length, say maybe 1 1/2 to 2.

Zigzagging the seam edge.

Make sure you repeat this finishing step on the other side. You should now have a nice wide tube of material.

7. We need to sew our gathering stitches, which we will use to gather our skirt. Set your machine to do a loooong straight stitch. I use a stitch length of 5, which is as high as my machine goes.

This is my machine set to straight stitch, with a stitch length of 5.

Sew a single line of stitching all the way around one edge of your tube of material, but don't let the ends of your stitching run into each other. Stop when you're about a stitch away from where you started. I find it easier to "walk" my machine using my hand on the wheel thingy (what's that called again?) for my final few stitches. Leave a little length of thread at the beginning and end of your line of stitching; it should look like this:

Now you need to sew another line of stitching parallel to that one, with the same machine settings. This line should be between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch away from the first. Again, don't let the ends meet but stop about a stitch away from where you began. Leave thread tails as you did the first time. Now it should look like this:

8. Now, before we gather the skirt, let's mark it and our t-shirt so we will know how much gathering we need to do. To do this, first fold the tube of material in half, from seam to seam, and find the half-way point between each seam. Put a safety pin at each half-way point. Then fold the t-shirt in half, from side-seam to side-seam, and again find the half-way point between each seam. Again, put a safety pin at each half-way point. Now your t-shirt and your skirt are both divided into quarters by the safety pins and the seams.

Now let's safety pin our shirt and skirt together: Have your skirt turned wrong-side-out, and your tee right-side-out. Place your tee inside your skirt, making sure the edge of the tee is together with the edge of the skirt that has the gathering stitches. Match the front safety pins and hold together where they meet, with your fingers. Remove one safety pin and use it to pin both layers together where you are holding with your fingers. Remove the other pin and set it aside for a minute. Now, do the same with the back safety pins. You can then use the safety pins you have set aside to safety pin the side seams of your tee to the seams of your skirt. It should look something like this:

Now, find the beginning of your gathering stitches. You want to find the top threads and then separate out the beginnings of the top threads from the ends of the top threads. Hold the two beginning, top threads in one hand and hold the threads firmly, as you pull the fabric of the skirt along the threads with your other hand. If you are right-handed, you will be holding the threads with your right hand and pulling the fabric along the gathering threads with your left hand. You will be pulling the fabric GENTLY to the left.

You will see the fabric begin to pucker and gather up. At some point it will become difficult to gather any more; then you will need to pull what you have already gathered GENTLY further down the threads. Then continue and repeat until the skirt has reduced in width enough that it will fit around the t-shirt nicely. I like to gather half of my skirt using the beginning of the gathering threads, then turn around and gather the other half of the skirt using the ends of the gathering threads.

Once you have reduced the width of the skirt so it is about the same as the width of the t-shirt, place a straight pin into the fabric between the beginning and end gathering threads, and wrap the thread ends (the back ones and the front ones -- eight ends altogether) in a figure-eight around the pin. This will keep your gathers from coming out as you pin the skirt and tee together.

You may find the gathers are uneven, so gently even them out with your fingers as you pin the skirt to the tee. I like to pin at intervals of about 1 1/2 inches. Even though you have stay-stitched your t-shirt, you should still be careful not to stretch it as you pin. When you are done, it should look like this:

9. Using a straight stitch and a medium stitch length, say about 3, baste your skirt and tee together over the gathering stitches. Proceed slowly, and make sure to remove all pins and safety pins as you go. Do not sew over them.

Remove those safety pins, ladies!

Now set your stitch length a little smaller, say 2 1/2, and carefully sew the waist seam, with a seam allowance of 1/2 an inch. You will want to be careful to make sure your gathers are laying straight as you stitch over them. Also, don't forget to reverse stitch at the beginning and end of your stitching. It also helps if you overlap the beginning and end of your stitching line just a little this time.

Now trim your waist seam a little to neaten it. I don't cut so far as to cut into either the basting or the seam we just sewed but it's okay if you cut the gathering stitches. Then, using a medium-wide zigzag and a stitch length of maybe 1 1/2 to two, zigzag the edge to prevent fraying.

10. Lovely! We are nearly there. We need to hem our skirt. You will want to put the dress on your little girl and decide how long you want it. Mark the length (carefully

) with a pin. Carefully remove the dress from your little cutie. Place the dress, inside out, on a flat surface. I prefer to do this over the end of my ironing board, turning the dress as I go around. Fold up the edge of the skirt to the point where you have the marking pin. Make sure it is even, then press the edge. Turn the dress slightly on the ironing board, fold evenly, and press. Continue in this way until you come back to the beginning. Now, open up your fold and bring the bottom edge of the skirt up to the fold line. Press, forming another fold (and try not to press over the first fold because you will need it in a minute). Turn, fold and press all the way around as before. Now you are ready to fold up once again along the original crease. It should look like this:

You may want to press this double-fold again quickly just to make sure it is nice and crisp. Now, pin the hem at even intervals all around.

You are ready to stitch your hem. I prefer to do this on my machine, using a straight stitch and a medium-small stitch length of about 2 1/2. Sew carefully, close to the inside edge of your fold. Make sure your material is nice and flat as it goes through the machine.

When I am working such visible stitches as are on a hem, I prefer to start and end the line of stitching with a few tiny (0 length) stitches rather than reverse-stitching. It is less noticeable this way.

11. That's the basic dress made up. Let's give it a final pressing:

Now, the dress is pretty much complete. You can leave it like it is, if you want. However, there are many ways to dress it up a little. I will give instructions for adding an applique embellishment to the t-shirt in my next post...and here is a picture of the final product for your enjoyment!

Thursday, January 4, 2007 - The long-awaited T-shirt dress tutorial, lol

Friday, January 5, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Friday, January 5, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Friday, January 5, 2007 - Too cute

Friday, January 5, 2007 - That is sooo cute!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - T shirt dress

Saturday, June 7, 2008 - That is the cutest thing.