How to Stretch a Shirt - Project 3 (are you sick of baby legs?)

If you’ve been following along, you know we’ve already made leg warmers and leggings out of one thrift store shirt.  I’ve got one more baby bottom project here - so I hope you aren’t tired of baby legs yet!  

When I was done with the leg warmers and leggings, I had these little portions of the sleeves left:

I thought they’d make great shorts, if I could figure out how to connect them.

I set them together, and noticed they were simply missing a triangle piece from the front and back.  And THAT seemed like an easy enough thing to remedy.

SO here’s what you need:

the remnants of the thrift shirt you’ve been using

sewing machine

inch wide elastic

skinny elastic

Lay out your shirt and cut off the rest of the sleeves where they attach to the shirt.

Cut out two matching triangles from the body of the shirt.

Turn your sleeves inside out.

Lay your sleeves so the longer sides are out.  So:

Place a triangle piece in between the sleeves and line up the side of the triangle with the angled part of the sleeves.

Pin.

Straight sew the triangle to the sleeves, one at a time.

You now have a triangular hole in the back only.

So, pin your second triangular piece in there and straight sew it to one sleeve:

then the other:

There will be a little hole in the bloomers right where the crotch is.  Simply sew a straight stitch across this hole.

Trim the fabric at the bottom of the legs to make sure that they are the same length and that the bottom is nice and straight and not jagged.  Because knit doesn’t fray much, I didn’t hem these.  

Fold the waist down just a bit - about 1/4 inch - and sew around, hemming the top down. 

Measure out a section of inch wide elastic to fit the baby’s waist.  

About 1/2 inch down from the top of the bloomers, tack the elastic down on a seam using your machine.  

Now, using a zig-zag stitch, sew the elastic to the bloomers, pulling it out tight with one hand and pulling the fabric through with your other as you sew. (pretty much exactly what you did with the leg warmers)

Now the waist is all ruffled!

Use your skinny elastic and this same method around the legs of the bloomers.

They’re done!

Well, almost.  See, if you try them on your baby and they fit like this:

you’ll probably have to take the waist in a little bit.  BUT, (after some minor repair) those are some cute little shorts for summer, and the THIRD thing you’ve made from ONE little old shirt!

Tomorrow we’ll move on from the "bottom half."  Aren’t you glad?!?

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