T-shirt shorts and a Sewing Bee…

We had our second Make It Better…Charity Sewing Day this weekend. A Sewing Bee no less..!

We had a variety of projects available for people to make, including more of the pillowcase dresses we made last time. But being the mum of 2 Small boys I couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for all the little boys living in poverty in the developing world, and how they must feel when the girls get all their pretty new dresses. Why does no one show that they are loved and thinking about them too?
There is a section on the Sew Scrumptious blog (Louise is the UK co-ordinator for the Dress A Girl Around the World charity) for making shorts, so I had a little look.
And it all looked a bit complicated.
So I hit Pinterest, and found a great You Tube video for making shorts from an old t-shirt-right up my street 🙂

So this is what I did.

And then I made up some instructions for the lovely Sewing Bee-ers so they could do some too.
A quick Freecycle and Facebook alert for some old t-shirts was answered by some fabulous people and we were sorted 🙂

These are honestly super quick and super easy.
I think I might make some for the Smalls as PJ bottoms and hubby has even been eyeing them up (in a bigger size..)

This is what you need:

• T-shirt
• Elastic
• Sewing machine and thread
• Pins
• Scissors
• Old shorts to use as a template

 This is what you do:

• Turn the t-shirt inside out and then fold it in half

I’ve been ‘monkeying’ about with PicMonkey after finally discovering it about 5,000years after everyone else…See where I’ve added text for no apparent reason 🙂

• Fold your template shorts in half and then place them so that the folded bit of the shorts (by the fly) is placed on the fold of the t-shirt and the bottom of the shorts in line with the bottom of the t-shirt (saves hemming later..!)

• Cut around your shorts-you can mess about with the size at this stage, making them bigger or smaller than your template, or the same if you want the same size! I allowed about 2cm (1/4”) seam allowance
• Open out the t-shirt fabric and you should now have 2 weird rhomboid shapes with curved edges!

• Pin and sew along each of the curved edges

• Lay your ‘shorts’ out with the seams you have just sewn in the middle and it should start to look vaguely like a pair of shorts

• Pin and sew up each of inner leg seams. I was careful(ish) to match up the hems and the crotch at either end first and then pinned along the middle. Make sure your sewn lines go completely to the end at each end otherwise you will have a holey crotch…

• Then all you have to do is make a waistband:
  -you can either make a casing (fold over 1-2cm and then sew close to the edge) and thread elastic or a drawstring through (not sure if it is against ‘Elf & Safety’ to have drawstrings on children’s trousers now?) and sew over the elastic at each end;
  -OR pin and sew your elastic on to the waistband using a shallow zigzag, and then fold the fabric over and sew again to make it look neater!

I guesstimated at the amount of elastic used at about 2/3 the length of the waistband, and did the second method. It wasn’t that pretty-a fair amount of wonk, but will be better next time..

And there you have ’em, one pair of shorts! From a t-shirt 🙂

If you fancy making a pair for the Dress A Girl (and boy) around the world project, you can find out where to send them at Sew Scrumptious. Or why not do what we did and hold a Sewing Bee and see how many pairs you can make?!