delia creates

color your summer, crafting, kids, tutorial ·

Red…Turtleneck to Summer Tee

Hello, Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day.
Today, I am going to show you a quick, easy trick to summer-ize some winter shirts.
It’s a sweet and simple…
…mini-tutorial.
All you do is take some turtlenecks that are likely on clearance right now at many clothing stores. I got mine at Walmart for $1.

Or grab some turtlenecks from your kids’ winter wardrobes.

Cut off the top, leaving a 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch of knit above the seam. You choose.
Be careful that the front and the back match up at the neckline {not necessarily at the top} so you get an even cut.
Using an existing shirt as a guide, cut the sleeves about 1/2 inch shorter than where you want them.
Then cut another two, 1 1/2 inch pieces from the sleeves. You can use pieces toward the top of the sleeve, or further down the sleeve if you want it to be a little more narrow around the finished arm.
Fold the 1 1/2 inch piece in half with the raw seams facing the inside of the fold.
Pin them around the cut sleeve ends with the folded side against the cut side. This may seem backwards to you, but you want the raw edge to eventually face out.
Sew with a narrow zig-zag stitch, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance.
Flip it right side out and you have a raw sleeve edge that more closely matches your newly cut neckline.
Trim it back and straighten it, if you need to.
Optional step: top-stitch all the way around the cuff. With a straight stitch.
I decided to, to keep the sleeve cuff from flipping up too much.
Repeat the process with the other sleeve.
And you’re done!
Whoo hoo! Easy huh?
Leave it as is, or paint it…red if you please. 🙂

I don’t have a silhouette and I am impatient with the exacto knife. So, I tend to lean toward simpler graphics.

These stripes are very easy. I just used my paper cutter to get exact lines and layered them on top of other cut pieces to get this look.

*And I must admit. I was going to spray paint the white shirt but ran out of paint. So I used red acrylic paint. I know…I am so cheap. 🙂 And curious. I just wanted to see how it would turn out. It isn’t ideal but if you heat set it in the dryer it will do fair. It just doesn’t wear well over time and is inflexible. I will talk more about it next week with another project.

Before I painted it, I put it on Reid to see how it looked. The first thing he said was, “Where’s da robot Mom?” Ha ha…so I just I HAD to put a robot on it. How could I not after a cute question like that?
Because the reverse image was already cut out I quickly added one to Owen’s shirt as well.
And of course, a photo shoot with my kids always requires bribery…ahem, a treat.

So we busted out our first popsicles of the season.

{I just have to mention, this is the face he made at me when I asked him to smile…ha ha…you can obviously see him saying cheeeeeeese! }

I can’t wait for more days of warm sun, cold popsicles and running through the sprinklers.

And goofing off.

My kids…are so hilarious. I pull out the camera…and this is what I get almost everytime.

Ha ha…

I just finished another one of Owen’s shirts that had stained sleeves – he likes to use them as napkins {cringe}. But this project was perfect for it. I just cut off the stained mess and now he has another T-shirt to get dirty this summer! 🙂

Be sure to check out Kojodesigns for a lovely Red project from Cakies!
Have a great day!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Super fun and practical. Also, it’s always refreshing to see projects that don’t require a silhouette (since I don’t have one either!)

    Reply

  3. so smart and cute!

    I finished and just posted The Quilt I made for my daughter…I did it! Thought I'd share with you!

    Have a good one!

    Daniele

    Reply

  4. Your boys freaking kill me. They are hilarious! As soon as my daycare baby goes home, we are high-tailing it to Walmart for some cheap shirts! Thanks for the awesome tutorial!

    Reply

  7. Hot dog! Delia, have you secretly snuck into my basement to look at my "to do" pile? It seems you are making tutorials JUST FOR ME right now! I recently inherited about 5 turtlenecks for my son – but he NEVER wears turtlenecks – not even in winter. I knew I wanted to turn them into t-shirts, but I didn't really know exactly how to do it…
    Thanks AGAIN!

    Reply

  9. those pictures are SO FUN! Great revamp on the turtlenecks. Long ago, when I wasn't very familiar with sewing at all, I tried to make a turtleneck a crew neck for my husband. Bad things happened.

    Reply

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