How great would it be to have a lovely T-shirt on every occasion? A great T-shirt means right color, right length, right sleeve length and right pattern on the fabric. The biggest problem is that T-shirt designers don’t come up with too many interesting designs and if you will happen to find some interesting T-shirts it is going to be expensive and it is simply not worth it. With Summer in the full swing, it is absolutely necessary to have a wide variety if colorfully fun T-shirts. I will show you how to get it done with a little of time. You will need a pattern of your favorite T-shirt design and super cute jersey fabric to work with. To get sewing done quickly make sure to follow this T-shirt DIY and let me know how it worked out for you. The easiest way to make a T-shirt DIY pattern is to use baking paper and trace individual elements of the item to be copied. You need to be careful and patient to get shapes right and remember to allow  a centimeter for the seam. Now it is easy to copy favorite T-shirts one after another. Sewing doesn’t take more than 40 minutes with an overlock machine and 90 minutes with a standard home machine (please remember to zig zag the ages of fabric before using the home machine in order to reduce stretch of the fabric otherwise needle may skip some stitches).

The best part of your new pattern is that now you can make some small adjustments without any worry if the final result is going to fit you as a dream. You can change your T-shirt design by modification of sleeve length, length, neckline, and shape on the hips. From straight finish to triangles on the sides or maybe a wave?

Let’s get started with our pattern. Make sure to fold the T-shirt in half and aligned with an edge of the baking paper. Take your time and cut off the shape carefully. I’m going to cut it a bit longer because the original T-shirt seems to be a bit short in my opinion. The neckline was too deep as well so I made some correction on it. Now cut the little sleeve and we are ready with two the piece pattern and we can start cutting the shapes from fabric.

Remember to cut from folded fabric to get left and right side of front and back. The back and the front is exactly the same with one small difference. You will have to cut about a centimeter below the shoulder line. This will create a small shift of  the stitch on the shoulder like on the original T-shirt design and it will help us to make a clean finish of the neckline.Once you got the sleeves cut out, you can get on sewing. First, you need to connect the front and back on the top of the shoulders. Then you can add sleeves. If you work with the home machine remember to zig zag fabric before sewing it together. Can you see how the top of the shoulder got shifted? Now I can recognize where is front fo the shirt. Oh yes, I should mention that my front and back got the same depth of neckline so this little shift on the shoulders is the only way to recognize where is front and where is back of this T-shirt design. Next time I will cut high neckline for the back side of the T-shirt.Now you need to zig zag the bottom of the T-shirt and sew along both sides to close it in.

If you have a triangle cut on each side, like I do, you will have to be careful while folding up the edges. I usually start away from the pointy corner and work toward it slowly pulling on the fabric a little bit. Then you need to make a smart fold like on the photos below. It looks really good and clean inside out.T-shirt would be almost finished at this point if not my daughters last minute idea to make a twist on the sleeves and change them from straight short to open and longer. It is a bit tricky to change it at this point but what are you going to do? This T-shirt is for her so I need to manage somehow. I have cut off a piece of the sleeve and sew a wider piece of the fabric as an extension. Then you need to gather the fabric to match the width of the sleeve and extension.Yeah, it looks pretty good. To hold those little waves in place I have run it on my home sewing machine otherwise, it is all moving around and it is difficult to hold it for an overlock machine.Make sure that stitch of sleeve and extension are in line. Pin it all together and you are ready to stitch it together.

It looks like a little bell sleeve, so adorable. My daughter had a good idea, I really like it this way.My model did her best and all 3 T-shirt designs turned up fantastic from my T-shirt DIY pattern. I know there are lots of free t-shirt templates in the net but it is not easy to take a copy from screen size picture. I really wish somebody could show me how to make this paper patterns when I was taking my first steps in sewing, I would have been more successful for sure. It is so much fun to make small adjustments and it really makes you feel like a designer for a day. Now I have to sew some of those T-shirts for myself! It would be so great to have a couple of them but I will have to go for fabric shopping first. Have a great weekend and fun with your T-shirt design.