Sew: How To Draft A Pattern From Your Fave T-Shirt

You know that favorite t shirt that you wish you had in every colour? Now you can! This method allows you to make a faithful reproduction of any tee you like. Being able to clone a much loved tee is fabulous and also fabulously easy. It works on any garment but the more complex the garment, the trickier it gets. If you are interested in learning more about this method, check out this craftsy course. To get started on your tee, you’ll need a surface you can pin right into. I used my ironing board because it’s really well padded and was wide enough, but foam core board from the news agent or even cardboard will do. I use Ikea paper that comes on a roll (in the kids department) for pattern drafting but brown craft paper, the white side of decent quality wrapping paper or even baking paper will do the job. Paper patterns tend to rip easily, so if I like it once I’ve sewn it, I trace my patterns onto McCalls pattern trace from Spotlight, most fabric shops will sell this or something similar.

You’ll need:

Pins

Paper

Pen

Ruler

Scissors

Pinable surface

Prep your favorite tee by first gently pressing it flat, being careful not to stretch it out of shape. Fold the tee in half, being sure to match all seams.

Lay the paper over the pinable surface, with the carefully folded tee on top of the paper. Pin all along the seam lines of the tee, sticking the pins just into the pinable surface so they stick upright.

It’s up to you how many pins you use. It’s wise to keep the pins pretty close together when pinning the curves and less on the straight lines. You’ll see I pinned underneath the neck band because I knew I would be adding my own neck band later. If you are not adding a neck band, just pin right on the edge.

Remove the pins. You now have little pin holes marking the shape your your tee front.

Join the dots with the smoothest line you can make – don’t stress too hard, there will be other chances to smooth them out.

Choose a seam allowance and add it on, I love this seam allowance ruler that makes adding seam allowance super quick. I didn’t add a seam allowance to my neckline because I knew that I would add a neckband to the top when I sew it. Don’t forget to mark the fold, name if pattern piece and what size seam allowance you’ve added.

Repeat for the back and sleeve pieces. You can leave the sleeve as cut on the fold or trace it out a second time and tape the two pieces into one sleeve piece. All that’s left to do is sew up your tee!

Once I had the pattern sorted out, I sewed up this stripey little tee from it. I think it turned out beautifully, what do you think?

This tee was made as part of my Me-Made-May 13 pledge. To read more about Me-Made-May 13 click here or if you’d like to see what I’ve been wearing, visit me on facebook xxxxx