DaDdY's ShIrT To BeD

When I was little I remember always making up some excuse as to why I NEEDED to wear my Dads Shirt to bed. Well my girls do the same (okay...maybe they were out of clean pajamas and I was trying to convince them to sleep in their underwear and they for sure would not go for it)... The other night I had an idea to make one of their Daddy's shirts into a night gown and this is what came of it. Now just to warn you, this is my first EVER tutorial so hopefully the directions are clear enough for you to follow....

Find a big comfy shirt owned by Daddy

Lay the shirt out flat and find a dress in your child size to determine the opproximate size you will want to cut the shirt. I cut about an inch from the dress. I did a little of my mommy measuring to measure how big the childs shoulder is from collar bone to shoulder so the sleeve fits right..my girls are 2 & 4 and their shoulders are about 2 inches so I cut the shoulders two inches from the neckline. Cut the bottom 3 inches or so off the shirt to save for the ruffly part

Cut one side, then remove the dress and fold the Daddy shirt in half....use the neck line to determine where the center of the shirt is.....and then cut the second side using the first as a guide.

I made a little pattern to follow...copy the basic shape of the sleeve portion and shrink it...use your awesome creative skills here! You may need to cut the paper and pin it together to make sure it is the right size before you cut the sleeve.

Place the sleeve on the shirt so you can mark where the bottom of the sleeve will sit.

Sew the shrunkin sleeve back together. You can surge it so there is not a raw edge or use a finishing stitch or just don't worry about any raw edges...

Turn the shirt inside out so that right sides are together and sew up the egdes to the pin that is marking the bottom of the sleeve. With the right side of the sleeve out, place the sleeve inside the shirt like the picture below...just slide it right inside so right sides of the sleeve and shirt are touching. Then sew the sleeve on.

Okay now the shirt is put back together, now we just need to finish the shirt off with some ruffles.. Take that bottom piece that we cut off the shirt and do a loose straight stitch so you can gather that little piece... gather it to make it the same size and the bottom of the dress.

Then to make the ruffle stand out a little more sew it with the raw edge showing.

Then get a really grumpy little model to show it off...

Hope that this was helpful, and that there will be lots of little girls getting to wear daddys shirt to bed. My husband loves these night gowns, he thinks its so cute that they want to wear his shirts.