I recently tested two basic tee shirt patterns – youth crew neck basic t-shirt and the women’s basic t-shirt. Both of them are so easy and as always, there are lots of options. I also made a reversible shirt using the youth pattern.
I found this fabric at JoAnns and I new my youngest son would love it – mostly because it wouldn’t matter what way he put his shirt on, it would be the right way. When you’re ten and you don’t have to worry if your shirt is inside out or not, that’s a win!
I used flat fell seams for the shoulder seams. This is actually very easy to do. First, clip the seams wrong sides together (trust me). Sew a narrow 1/4″ seam. For this tutorial, stripes is the right sides, polka dots is the wrong side.
Now, clip the shoulder seams right sides together. The seam you just made will be sandwiched between the layers of your new seam so it’s completely hidden. Sew this seam.
Press the seam to the back and top stitch it down. Voila – seam one, done.
You could do this for all the seams, but I thought it would be hard to do on the sleeves, so I did a different finish. Sew the sleeve seam as normal – right sides together. Then, trim the shirt part of the seam. Press the seam to the shirt and top stitch it in place. Sew slowly and stay as close to the edge as possible.
Sew the side seams normally – right sides together. Then trim the back part of the seam. Press the seam to the back and stitch it down like you did for the sleeves. All the seams are now either fully enclosed or stitched down. The last seam is the neck band. Sew it as instructed. Then, press it towards the shirt and zig zag it down.
The final step is the hems. I chose to do narrow hems and zigzag them. This way they match the neckline stitching. To make a narrow hem, turn under 1/4″ and then another 1/4″ and sew it down.
Want to see all the options – check out this post
Ready to buy one or all? Individual patterns are $7.50 through Monday February 11 and the bundle is $21.
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