Tutorial for Men's Shirt Dress

As promised I have made another toddler dress from a men's button down shirt.  This time I actually took pictures of the process, and more importantly I paid attention to what I was doing so that I could describe it.

Unfortunately there are still some definite flaws in the end results and I will point those out as I go through this tutorial and hopefully I'll be able to explain how to avoid a similar fate.  Lucky for me Jill is cute enough to make my poor sewing look decent.  This is why I think sewing for a toddler is so wonderful.

For this project you will need a men's button down shirt (preferably one that is no longer being used by it's original owner); some bias tape or fold over elastic or some other sort of binding trim in a color that goes with the color or colors of your shirt; matching thread on a spool and on a bobbin (in my case I used a slightly different colored bobbin thread because I had a pre-wound bobbin and for some reason I find bobbin winding to be incredibly annoying when all I want to do is start my project;  scissors to trim threads, cut out your pieces and all that jazz (an optional rotary cutter, guide ruler, and cutting matt will make the project easier but are not nessesary); a seam ripper might be necessary to remove the breast pocket (though the shirt I ultimately used was pocketless); snaps to attach the arm straps to the back of the skirt; and finally a toddler to test out all of the sizing on as you go.

If there is a breast pocket on your shirt the very first step is to seam rip it off.  Just gently slide the tip of your seam ripper between the layers of fabric and push until the sharp blade in the curve of your seam ripper cuts the thread between the layers.  You can gently pull the layers apart to reveal the thread but don't tear your fabric in the process.  Also make sure that the tip of your seam ripper doesn't find its way into the actual fabric or you can tear a hold it it.  In this picture you can see the results of a hastily ripped seam, and so I switched to a different shirt.

Now you need to cut the shirt straight across under the armpits.  I like to use a rotary cutter, ruler, and cutting mat for this step because it makes for a straighter and cleaner cut. Take to time to straighten everything out before you cut.  I find it easier and faster to cut through two layers of fabric (the front of the shirt and the back of the shirt) at once, but if your bottom layer is laying in some sort of funky incorrect way you could potentially ruin your project before you start.

Next you should run a basting stitch all the way around the top edge that you just cut. Unbutton the shirt so that you can lay it flat- this makes it much easier to work with for the next several steps.   Begin your stitch just after the button.  I don't like to have the material where the buttons are be gathered so I just don't start the basting stitch there.  A basting stitch is a very long straight stitch.  Every machine is different, but you should select a straight stitch and then set it to as long as it will go on your machine.

Because the stitch is so long you are going to be moving the fabric through your machine a little faster than you're used to.  Just keep guiding the stitch along the edge of your fabric until you get around to the button holes.  The thread that you use for this basting stitch doesn't need to be anything fancy because in the end it will not be seen.  I keep a huge stand alone roll of white thread behind my sewing machine and I just thread it through for any sewing steps such as this one that don't really matter.  Make sure that you leave a lot of thread on both sides of your stitch.    Just pull your bobbin thread before you start sewing, and then trim your thread at the end with a lot of slack.

Now you should trim the fabric down close to your basting stitch.  It will help you later to fit the gathered raw edge into your bias tape, and it will also make it easier to make the gathers and distribute them across the length of your fabric.  Don't trim it too close lest you lose your basting stitch off the edge to fraying, but cut it down to about half a centimeter or 1/8 of an inch.  In my pic you can see that I trimmed it down even closer than 1/8 of an inch but I was lucky and didn't lose my stitch to fraying.

Now you need to find those long bobbin threads.  The bobbin thread will be the thread on the bottom side of your fabric from where you were stitching.  hold onto your fabric and give the bobbin threads a good pull, working first from one side, than from the other.  Push your gathers along to distribute them evenly across the entire length of fabric.  Measure your toddler and cut a strip from your bias tape to that length.  Continue to gather your shirt-skirt until it is roughly the same length as the bias tape.

Now it is time to create and cut a yoke (or dress top).  I love tissue paper because it is cheap and allows me to cut and redesign whatever pattern pieces I want.  You could use any yoke pattern piece from a commercial sewing pattern, but in this case I decided to go for it and just drew something that I thought would work.  I then tested the tissue paper piece against my little one and made a few adjustments.  To create my pattern piece I simply folded the tissue paper in half and drew half of my yoke/bodice shape.  I cut out the piece and once it was tested against my little model I cut that shape out of the remain fabric from the button down shirt.  I chose to use a piece of fabric from the back panel.

Once you have cut out your yoke/bodice you should put it on your gathered skirt with right sides together- that means the pretty side of the fabric that you ultimately want to be seen is going to be to the inside right now.  This is an important step in the process that should not be rushed.  I rushed it.  My final product has buttons off center because of my foolish rushing.  Make sure that your gathers are evenly spaced. Use the original side seams of the shirt as markers and check that one side isn't longer than the other. Take a second to pin the yoke to the skirt.  You can remove the pins later, but for now this will help you make sure that as you sew things are staying put. 

Now you  are going to start putting the bias tape on.  Thread your machine with whatever color you are using.  I always take a second to stitch a practice stitch line in a scrap of fabric before starting on my project and I'm glad that I did.  My bobbin had too much thread on it and wouldn't turn so I had to adjust that before starting on the real thing.

You want to get the gathered edge of the skirt as far into the fold of the bias tape as you can.  Don't worry about getting the whole skirt into the bias tape at first.  Just get the first inch or so ready to go and start sewing that.  You want your stitch line to be towards the edge of the bias tape that is holding your skirt to make sure that the material is held firmly in there without dropping a section by accident.  Work a few inches in front of your needle- pushing the gathered material into the bias fold and then pinching the bias tape around it.  Slow and steady wins the race here.  Stitch an inch or two and then stop with your presser foot down and prepare the next section.  At the end you can tighten or loosen your gathers as needed to fit the length of your bias strip.

Use a silk stitch to bind off the raw edges of your bias tape.  The silk stitch is a very short length zigzag stitch.

You are getting close to the end now.  Flip the yoke up so that the bias binding is hidden behind it.  Now you are ready to rim the yoke with bias tape.  To create a finished edge open up your bias tape, fold over a small strip, and then close your bias tape back up.  Use an iron to press your work flat.  Now wrap the bias around the side of your yoke and once again work a couple of inches ahead of the needle.  When you get to the top corner stop following the fabric and just keep stitching your bias strip closed.  This is going to become of of your shoulder straps.  You can see in the picture to the left how tie bias tape should follow one side of your yoke then continue on as a strap.



Repeat the process on the other side.  Now your yoke has two straps and the sides have been bound.  All you need to do is bind the neckline with bias tape.

Make a point out of the end of your bias tape by opening it and folding the two corners in towards the center fold.  Close the bias tape and iron the new folds.  Now you can line up the end of your bias tape to wrap around the bias binding you already put on the side and then sew across the neckline from there.  You can silk or straight stitch that corner along your original stitching once you have gone across.  You'll see what I mean in the picture to the left. Now that everything has been bias taped you are ready to finish off the dress.  

If you are like me you will now have to wait for your little one to wake up so that you can try the dress on her and check where your snaps have to go.  Then you'll have to wait for her to fall asleep again for another nap or for the night before you can finish the dress.  Below is a picture of what your dress should look like at this point- hopefully yours              is a little more symmetrical than mine is.  

You can use any type of snap that you want- I like the babyville boutique snaps.  You can buy them in many places online or often you can find them at Jo-ann Fabric stores.  I dislike sewing snaps on by hand so the use of pliers appeals to me, and I also enjoy the colors that these snaps come in.  The end of this tutorial shows how to use thus type of snap, but if you are using anything else I am sure a quick search on google, youtube, or pinterest will help you find a guide.

There are essentially two parts of the snap.  I think of them as the innie and the outie.  I put the innie part of the snap on the back of the skirt itself.  Figure out where you want your straps to attach to the skirt and then use an awl to poke a hole there to guide your snap into place.  DO NOT then hold the awl in your mouth while you work and accidentally stab your hand because that hurts and gets blood on your garment.  So yes, if you can see the little dark spots in the pictures that would be my blood- and later if the fabric looks wet that's because I had to wash the blood out of the fabric before I could continue.

Take note of where you place your first snap and try to match it for symmetry on the other side of the dress. Use your awl again (more carefully this time) to poke your hole.  Then take the round flat base piece of the snap and guide its spike through your hole.  Now find one of those little innie pieces and stick it on top of that spike so that the fabric is sandwiched between.  

Now hold all of that together with one hand and slide your pliers over top so that the snap base is on the side of the big rubber circle and your snap innie is on the side with the smaller rummer circle.  Now squeeze the pliers tightly and you should have a nicely sealed snap.

And don't panic- if you make a mistake (like I did) and you actually grab too many layers of your dress into the snap you can use the handy little screwdriver they include in the snap kit (although I doubt this is its intended purpose) and pry the snap back apart.  You may have to silk stitch the unintended hole closed but at least the whole dress isn't ruined.

Figure out where to place your shoulder strap snaps based  on the size of your toddler and follow a similar process  only use the outie part of the snap instead of the innie.  And make sure that you have your snap facing the right way so that you don't have to twist the strap to get it to snap.  Thank goodness that is one mistake I didn't make in this process.

Now put your finished dress on your toddler and let the adorable ensue.  

A pile of cheerios were needed to encourage her to be still so that I could get a picture of the back of her dress.

Crib Bumper Curtains

Baby bedding sets today still include crib bumpers even though the American Academy of Pediatrics cautions that they increase the risk of SIDS.  Bedding sets are generally fairly expensive, so it seems like such a waste that one of the biggest elements of the set should go unused.

My sister has a Winnie the Pooh theme going in my nephews bedroom, and at her baby shower someone gave her a beautiful Winnie the Pooh bed set.  A few months ago she gave me the crib bumpers asking if I could make something with them for the room.  Then she asked for me to make a set of blackout curtains for him.  I took one of the bumpers to the fabric store to coordinate colors, but it didn't occur to me until a few days later that I could use the crib bumpers to add personality to the curtains themselves.

So I got my seam ripper out and got to work.  The first step was simply to remove the batting from the bumper.  I decided to add the bumper to the bottom of the curtain panel, so I had to seam rip the top.

 Once I got the binding off of the top of the bumper I found that the batting was sewn in with white thread, so  I carefully seam ripped that as well and then pulled out the batting.

I measured my curtains and cut down one side of the bumper, leaving extra length to fold over.  A little ironing and you have a nice clean edge. 

I wanted the curtains to be fully black out (light proof) so I took a piece of black out curtain lining and cut it down to size.  I cut it so that there would still be enough fabric at the top op the bumper to fold over and create a pretty edge.  Measuring was a simple matter of lining them up and then cutting about a half inch from the top edge. Ultimately I just nipped the width I wanted with my scissors and then used a rotary cutter and cutting mat to trim the liner down to size.  

I put the liner inside the bumper, taking a minute to line up all of the seams and ensure that the liner fit snugly into the very bottom of the bumper.  Then I use my iron to fold over the front and back pieces of fabric at the top.  You don't want to fold them together because you are going to be sliding the bottom of your curtain into this top pocket.  You want everything folded over though so that you don't have any raw edges showing.   

So I put the bottom of my blue curtain into the top of my bumper and stitched straight across using thread to match the bumper as best I could.  I put brown thread in the bobbin to match the back bumper fabric and I put green thread up top.  I used a stronger triple thick straight stitch to hold up to all the weight.  

The final step was simply to bind up the side that I had cut down to size.  I used a 1/4 inch foot that had a special guide rail to help you make a very narrow stitch line and it worked out very well.  

Pillowcase Pants Tutorial

I have been making many pillowcase pants for Jill now that the weather is warming up.  Pillowcases are made out of such nice lightweight (usually 100% cotton) material, and using the pillowcase opening trim as your hem makes for some ridiculously cute pants.

I went through my stash of commercial patterns and found the template for some pants.  I would recommend to any new sewer to buy a few patterns that include the most basic building blocks of clothing such as pants, sleeve, bodices etc.  You can use those building blocks to create whatever you want.  

I like to trace my pattern pieces onto tissue paper.  Making clothing for a growing girl means that I can't cut out one specific size on my baby clothing patterns.  Using tissue paper allows me to cut the tissue pattern piece to exactly the correct size, and it also allows me to draw and cut and make changes without ruining the original pattern.  Just slip your pattern under the tissue paper and trace away.

On its most basic level a pattern piece for a pair of pants is a long rectangle with a J shape cut out at the top.   The outer seam should be as long as you want your pants to be from ankle to hip PLUS extra length for hemming the bottom and double folding the top to create elastic casing.  You can check the length of your inner seam by using a pair of pants that currently fits. If you are working with a stretch knit fabric the waistline of your pattern should be 1/4 of your waist PLUS extra for seam allowances.  If you are working with a woven  (non stretch) fabric you will want to measure at the widest part of your hip so that you can get the pants on and off and let elastic worry about making the waistline fit your waist.  It is better to go too big than too small when cutting.  The length of the vertical section of the crotch J is the height of the front and back of your pants.  Using current terminology for jeans- this is the measurement that will determine if you have low rise, mid rise, or classic fit.  I like to cut this with lots of extra height so that I can trim it down later.  The horizontal(ish) part of your J is simply the space running from the front to the back.

I like to work with 4 pieces of fabric when I make pants, although I have also seen pants patterns with two pieces.  You could potentially cut the pattern with the outer seam line on the fold.  This, of course, assumes that your outer seam is a straight line and that your crotch lines are the same for the front of the pants and the back of the pants.  For more fitted pants you will find that you need larger pieces for the back than for the front with a different crotch curve to accommodate a derriere.


I didn't want this particular pair of pants to be very fitted- so I made things easier on myself and used one pattern piece for all four cuts of fabric, but I still like working with four rather than two.  

So I cut out my tissue paper copy of my pattern and laid it out on my INSIDE OUT pillowcase so that the bottom hem would be at the opening of the case, then I traced it out using a colored pencil.  You can buy fancy markers and pencils at the fabric store that will vanish after washing but I have found that a classic colored pencil is easy to see and won't bleed like a marker might.  Since all of these marks will end up on the inside of the pants I personally don't care.

When you cut this out you will be cutting through two layers of fabric which are naturally created by the pillowcase, but it's important to make sure both the top of the pillowcase and the bottom are properly lined up. You can see to the left that the scalloped pillowcase opening is wrinkled and uneven.

I have messed up far too many sewing projects by rushing ahead and not paying attention to details.  It's worth the time to line everything up carefully and use your hand to push folds and wrinkles out of the fabric.

When looking at tutorials and youtube videos on sewing it always seems like the fabric just magically does what you want it to do.  This isn't true for me.  Getting the fabric lined up perfectly took several minutes because when I made one adjustment it would mess up another adjustment.  Be patient and make small changes.  The end result is a perfectly lined up hem.

I cut through both layers of fabric and had my first two pieces- DON'T separate the two layers of fabric.  You are going to be sewing them together at the crotch line and they are currently perfectly and beautifully lined up.

Since I decided to use one pattern piece for all four cuts of fabric I could simply flip my cut pieces over and trace them out to make my next cut.  If, however, you are using different pattern pieces for the front and back of the pants you will need to trace that second shape onto tissue paper and trace that out instead.  In the end you will have four pieces of fabric- but remember not to pull anything apart yet.

The very next step is to sew along your crotch J shape for both the front and the back of the pants.  I am very bad with seam allowances and this always makes life more difficult in the end- which you will see later in this tutorial.  You can see in the photo that I only have a little bit of fabric sticking out to the right past the presser foot.  To make your life easier- move that fabric over- just realize that the bigger your seam allowances are the bigger your pattern pieces need to be to accommodate them.


 In the end you will have something that looks like this.  As you can see I have some puckering along my stitch line and that is because I am still learning how to guide the fabric through the machine gently, but luckily I am making pants for a toddler and no one will see or care about puckered seams.  The next trick is finishing the seam properly.  I wanted very badly to do this properly and I tried following suggestions found in tutorials on Pinterest.  I believe this failed because of my skimpy seam allowances, but I will show the process nonetheless.

First I trimmed down ONE side of the seam allowance.  

Then I folded the other side of the seam allowance over twice- so that the raw edge would be inside the fold- and I pinned it.  

I selected an overcasting stitch on my machine.  I could be wrong but I believe that the symbol is the same on all machines.  If you don't see a stitch that looks like this on your machine you can look at your manual and it will probably (hopefully) tell you which stitch is an overcast stitch.  In a worst case scenario you could also use a zigzag stitch set with a short stitch length.

And now the tricky part.  I had to keep that double folded edge going while sewing.  This wasn't too difficult for the straight part of the J curve.  I used the tips of two pins to help manipulate the fabric when I felt like my fingers were too fat to do the job.  

And in the end my seam looked like this:  

It was a headache getting around that curve.  I can't stand little detail work (which is a trait that probably does not go well with sewing) and I found the process of double folding a tiny strip of fabric to be maddening.  I think it would have been easier with a bigger seam allowance but for the second J seam I needed to sew I decided to you my improvised method which I will demonstrate next.

After sewing the J crotch line with a straight stitch I cut my seam allowance close to the stitch line.  I used the same overcast stitch, but I didn't worry about folding the raw edge into a fold.  I used my straight stitch line as a guide and overcasted the raw edge.

Then I did another pass starting at the opposite end.  My method is a huge waste of thread because you are triple stitching.  I don't even know if my method will work once the pants have been worn and washed a few times.  But I love how direct and quick this method is.  I was able to sew at top speed and just follow my original stitch lines.  

You can see the finished product of my method isn't the prettiest thing.  There are some threads sticking out and the stitch work isn't exactly pretty- but I believe it will hold.

You should now have two main things to work with- the front of your pants and the back of your pants.  Open them up so that your crotch J seam is in the middle and place front to back with RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER.  Right sides together basically means that the pretty side where you can't see any of the threads from the seams you just made are on the inside of your work and the 'ugly' side is to the outside.  Sew the outer seams first.  For pillowcase pants it's important to begin at the fancy hem that is created by your pillowcase opening because you want the trim to be lined up correctly.  In the picture  you can see that I'm holding the fabric together so that the trim line will match up from front to back. If you get to the top end of the pants and one side is a little longer than the other don't worry.  You are going to be turning over the top edge to make elastic casing anyway so it doesn't need to be perfect.  

The next step is to sew the inner seam.  Once again you want to line up the trim 'hem' of the bottom of the pants for each leg.  The inner seam is sewn in one long stitch line so it doesn't matter which end you start on. I am usually not a huge fan of pinning fabric when I can line things up with my fingers, but I do recommend pinning in this case.  Pin each trim line first and then smooth out the edges of your fabric so that they are lined up with each other working from the ends of the pants in towards the crotch J seam.  You can see me lining up the trim in this picture to the left.

You may end up with extra fabric in the very middle.  This can happen easily if your seam allowances on your center crotch seam were a little different.  Don't panic.  Working with each pant leg just move the extra fabric toward that center crotch seam and pin right next to it on each side.  One side of your fabric will be perfectly flat and the other side will now have a little curve of fabric at the seam.  find the middle of that bubble and press it down flat to the seam on the other side of your pants then pin down each side of that basically into a nice pleat and then sew over that.  I'm showing the process with two different colored felt papers here because it's easier to see than with monochromatic fabric.  Pretend that the black line is your seam.  

Once you have sewn your outer and inner seams you can finish off those seam allowances in whatever method you choose (either my made up triple stitch method or the real fold over method or some other method you have found and enjoy).  Because these are pillowcase pants and I've used the trim on the pillowcase to create the bottom of my pants I don't have to worry about hemming them.  I do still need to finish off the waist line though.

This is a good opportunity to grab Jill and try the pants on her.  I can make sure that I finish the waistline at an appropriate height by simply marking a line at her waist as she wears the pants.  I know that this isn't the proper method, but to create the elastic casing I just grab the pants with my fingers at the outer seams and fold over twice then press with an iron.  You can use a ruler to make sure that your fold is a consistent width but I think this is faster and easier and for me the results are the same.  You can see that the raw edge is folded away into the waist band so that it will not fray and cause issues.

I have pinned the fold over with a pink pin just to the left of my back center crotch seam.   Pink is my closest approximation in pin colors to red- which means stop.  I'm going to want to leave a nice hole in the fold over so that I can thread my elastic through.  I will start sewing just to the right of the center back crotch seam.  I have pinned my fold at all of the other seams with green pins that let me know to keep going until I get all the way back around to pink.  The pins just help to make sure that my folds stay consistent.

So here I have stitched all the way around my pants creating a beautiful casing for the elastic. . . or have I?  Apparently not!  I was so focused on my fold over and my pins and everything else that I failed to notice my bobbin has run out of thread.  It's an easy fix though.  I just cut down my top thread (which had grown long in the process of sewing with no bobbin), put in a new bobbin and started back where I ran out.

Finishing off the pants is now a simple task.  I measured Jill's waist and added an inch to cut a piece of elastic- I used 1/4 inch.  I used two safety pins to work the elastic through- one pin for each end of elastic.  The first end was secured in place by pinning it to the fabric on the outside of my casing.  The other end was pinned to nothing.  I just put a safety pin on there because it is long and stiff so I can push it through the casing and work it all the way around the pants and back to my opening.  The first safety pin keeps the end from being pulled through.  Just sew the two ends of elastic together (this is why I gave my measurement an extra inch) and then try them on your toddler.  I ALWAYS check the elastic on Jill before sewing my casing the rest of the way closed.  In this case I had to cut the elastic shorter and resew it together to make it fit properly.

 They have lots of room for bending and stretching and general playing; they are super light weight but they keep her legs protected; and most importantly the trim at the bottom makes them very sweet and girly.   I have gotten many compliments on all of Jill's pillowcase pants, particularly the bell bottom blue pants that are pictured at the top of this entry.  I need to find some more pillow shams or ruffle edged pillowcases to make more of those.