If you’ve seen yesterday’s post, you know I told you I wasn’t completely through with that onesie; I was going to give it some extra personality. Well, that’s where we’ll pick up today. Like many of my onesie transformations, this update is an example of how you can create cute, but cheap baby clothes. The additional fabric for today’s embellishment comes from a stained onesie that was ready to be retired. Using yesterday’s teal-dyed onesie, I’m going to add long sleeves and a little extra fabric at the neckline to give it a layered long-sleeved t-shirt look.
You will need:
- Pre-washed Short Sleeve Plain Onesie
- Long sleeved t-shirt or onesie in approximately the same size as plain onesie (preferably one that has seen better days)
- Needle and coordinating thread / sewing machine
- Fabric Scissors
- Seam Ripper
So let’s begin. I’ll first start with the onesie that is going to get deconstructed: Oh, this poor onesie. I’m sorry to see it go. But first I’ll grab the cute design on the front in case I want to embellish something later, and next I’ll cut off its arms. (Ooh, that sounds a little violent.) I’ll cut off its sleeves! (Much better.)
Using a seam ripper, I removed the aforementioned sleeves.
Then after measuring my model’s arm length, I cut the sleeves to the proper length (leaving enough extra for overlapping with the onesie’s sleeves), discarding the shoulder area fabric (unless you have another use for them).
Now, grab your good onesie. In my case, I used the onesie I dyed in yesterday’s post.
I tucked the end of the new sleeves inside the onesie, pinned, and sewed around the perimeter.
I handstitched this one, folks. I honestly couldn’t figure how to reasonably get this to fit under my presser foot without sewing the whole sleeve shut. So, this took a little bit longer than machining it, but I was infinitely less frustrated. Repeat for both sleeves.
Moving on to the neckline… I cut a strip of fabric from the old onesie on the bias (meaning at a 45 degree angle) and folded it in half long-ways (so it got skinnier, as shown below).
I pinned the folded strip around the front-inner neckline, so there is an even reveal of new fabric behind (so it looks like there’s the collar of another shirt underneath)!
I only did this “collar” on the front, as I thought it would look better, but you could try to do this on the backside of the neck if you wished. I was able to sew this on my machine, using the zig-zag stitch. I adjusted my stitch width so it would have the same width as the stitching already visible.
And that’s it! Admire your work on your sweet babe!
“Hey there, are you wearing two shirts?”
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