Upcycled Kids’ T-Shirts

I’ve been coming up with all sorts of things to do to avoid working on my bra pattern. My latest project was upcycled t-shirts for my kids.

My husband came home with a stack of old men’s work t-shirts someone had brought into his office. For some reason he thought I would use the fabric to make something 🙂

I used rub-off patterns to make the shirts, since I’m usually happier with the fit of kids’ clothes when I go that route rather than using commercial patterns.

I fiddled with my finicky serger and actually got it to work for this project, using ideas from the book The Ultimate Serger Answer Guide: Troubleshooting for Any Overlock Brand or Model. I highly recommend this book for everyone with a serger. There was one suggestion from this book that didn’t work for me, though – they suggested using larger needles to prevent skipped stitches, but I found smaller needles did the trick. I finally ended up using a size 10 Schmetz universal needle for the right needle and a size 12 ELx705 overlock needle on the left, even though those special needles are not recommended for my machine.

I used rolled hems on the long sleeve t-shirts, and when I went to switch the foot back to the normal position I stripped out the screw that holds the stitch finger in place. Figures. It is always something with this machine. I used craft glue to glue the stitch finger into the normal position, so I guess there will be no more rolled hems for a while. I am so looking forward to the day when I have the money saved up for a new serger.