A friend gave me a bunch of little guys shirts that had the onesie closure on the bottom. My little man is 21 months now--and kind of growing out of the onesie look on his shirts--SO I decided to chop off the bottoms and make them into regular shirts.
I was planning on hemming them up all nice--but soon found that made for very short shirts. SO instead what I did was just serge the bottom edge with a nice edging (like what you see on napkins or table cloths--you know what I mean?). I think they turned out great! They made these shirts into usable play shirts for my little man! I didn't end up doing ALL of the shirts as I found a few stains on a couple of them. But here are few of the ones that worked great!
When you hem a 'short' item (whatever it may be) often it is possible to clean finish the edge by doing one of two things: a. serge, topstitch a contrasting or matching ribbon or hem tape along the serging(a strip of similar fabric works also - you pick the width) and then turn the piece you have added under/up. It can be topstiched in place with plain or fancy stitches or hemmed almost invisibly using a catch stitch.
ReplyDeleteb. similar to above but slightly changed up. serge the two pieces (your 'short' item and a piece you are adding right sides together. This only takes off the width of the serging. Turn it under as previously explained.
Another fun way to lengthen a short item: fold a strip (approx 1 1/2 - 2" wide) of a similar type of fabric in half, with the 'wrong' side of the fabric inside, and serge it to the lower edge (so the seam will go inside the dress or shirt when the addition is dropped). On the little shirts above just find an old t-shirt in a similar color/texture (or buy a 2nd hand one for a few cents). If you look at commercially made items you will sometimes see this method of hemming a piece of clothing. The color/fabric can match or contrast (like the ribbing) and the width of the strip can be adjusted to complement the style of what it is being added to.
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