Adult T-Shirt into Baby T-Shirt DIY

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Plus, when you order through my link, it helps me stumble along in this bloggy blog world! I appreciate your support! My husband who has to put up with my craft supply obsession does too :D All opinions expressed are my own, and I am not sponsored by any product manufacturer unless otherwise stated :)

____________________________________________________

As cute and wonderful as cloth diapers are, they can be rather bulky. They can kinda make your baby look like a lightening bug. A cute as a button lightening bug, but all that fluff on the tooshy can be kinda a pain to stuff into a onesie. SO  I decided it would be easier for L to wear t-shirts when we're around the house. The only problem? Baby tshirts can be few and far between AND expensive.

Ya'll know I don't do expensive. 

I looked around the interwebs for a tutorial and all the ones I found involved sewing on ribbing for the neckline and arm holes.

I don't like working with ribbing, ya'll...

It turns out all kinds of nasty bad.

SO first I tried cutting off the existing ribbing of t shirts I had and sewing that on. NO BUENO. After staring at it in frustration for about two hours, I had a duh moment and thought to myself, 'Self, why don't you just leave the ribbing on?' 

So I took myself to the thrift store and picked up a bunch of large sized shirts with appropriately stretchy neckholes.

Ingredients:

-Tshirts (or shirts) with large sized neckholes. You want a decent amount of existing ribbing to work with

-Sewing machine

-Serger (optional but awesome)

-Scissors

-Thread

-Double needle (also optional, but also awesome)

-A onesie that fits your cute little nugget bebe :)

-Marking pen (Or a sharpie haha)

STEP 1: Lay out your shirt ON DA GROUND. Or table, if you have it. My table is covered in laundry...thus...DA GROUND.

STEP TWO: CUT OFF YOUR ARMS. No really, cut off the sleeves and SAVE THEM. Also, cut down the sides of your shirt, so you have equal front and back pieces.

STEP THE THIRD: So This is kidna hard to explain, but really simple in actuality. Cut you shirt along the top of the shoulders, making sure that you leave more ribbing on the BACK of the neckline than the front. Basically cut it a little over halfway.

This is what it should look like now. Got it? PEACHY!

STEP 4: Overlap the back of your shirt piece over the front, like so. The white dashes are how the front piece should lay under the back piece. PIN THAT. 

STEP 5: Now take your nicely fitting onesie and line up the collar with your shirt-in-progress. PIN where the shoulder seam meets the sleeve. You are going to want to sew two lines of stitching at that seam line. 

It should look about like this. But preferably better, because I kinda jacked mine up. MOVING ON.

STEP 6: Again with your onesie, fold the sleeve under (or in) and trace the arm hole of your onesie onto your big t shirt. THEN SNIPPY SNIPPY. Cut a straight line all the way down your shirt, through both layers of fabric.

You should now have this. Again, except hopefully better and more even....MOOOVVING ON.

STEP SHEVEN: Remember those sleeves I told you NOT TO THROW AWAY? Yeah, better go grab them out of the trash if you didn't listen to me. Trace a sleeve shape out along the hem line of the existing sleeve. The sleeve pattern I have here I simply drew up on a piece of paper...you can trace an old onesie sleeve to make it easier on yourself.

STEP 8: I didn't take a picture of these last few steps, because they are basic t-shirt putting-togethery-stuff. And I'm not very good at explaining that part. THIS TUTORIAL is awesome for doing foolproof sleeves! Attach the sleeves as normal, and sew up the sides of your shirt. You can serge or hem the bottom if you want, as well as embellish to your hearts content! I am currently experimenting with sleeve styles and for this one I threaded elastic through the hem casing before attaching it to the shirt.

STEP 9: Put your pretty new shirt on the cutest baby you know! 

Please ignore the spit up...this is the appreciation I get for making L new clothes hahaha

BONUS: Take some of your leftover material and make your little girl a matching headband!

These are two others I made while I was experimenting with sleeves/embellishment :)

As always guys, thank you for stopping by! Feel free to ask me anything! I love questions! :)