DIY // T-shirt Romper

This summer is apparently the summer of arts and crafts for me.
Recently I have found myself exploring the world of sewing and making clothes and all that fun stuff. Honestly reading over that last sentence makes me seem like quite the granny, but I think it is so useful to just know how to resize a dress or make a romper out of your dad's super chill t- shirts.

 T-Shirt #1

Y'all. Look at how massive this t-shirt is. It was a men's extra-large sleep shirt that my dad bought and never wore and so passed it down to me.

I loved the graphic and I love the brand Life is Good therefore I had to figure out something to do with it.  And a romper was born.

I guess you could say this post is just a preview because honestly I totally just made up the steps as I went using knowledge from other bloggers and YouTube, but if you would like I can post a real step by step video tutorial!  Meanwhile, check out these two tutorials / Merrick's Art // sloabn /

I did take some pictures along the way though and will explain basic steps!

The awesome thing about using t-shirts is that you can use the hems already on the shirt!! I made a pair of shorts using a pattern I made based another pair of shorts I have and cut it out along the bottom of the shirt.  Making shorts is super easy and you can learn by watching simple tutorials.

The shirt portion took a bit longer, especially because the shirt was so huge that I had to cut out new sleeves and fix the size of the body piece.  (I might have gotten impatient and accidentally sewed all along the side of the body piece before I realized there was no hole for me to put my arms in. Sigh.) You can use a basic t-shirt to figure out the patterns for the body and the sleeves.

The hardest part was definitely attaching the two pieces and adding elastic. I used this tutorial to add the elastic and I was done! The first time through this project took me about a day so not too bad!

T-Shirt #2

*psstt.. this one was my favorite!!
I basically followed the same steps but obviously I knew more of what I was doing this time around and it turned a lot better!  This one took a lot more guess work with proportions, though, because I hadn't made a pattern for long sleeves yet and the material was a lot thicker and therefore less stretch than the white shirt.  I kinda just winged it, but it turned out great.

I had to add a button hole and slit in the back of this one because there was no way I could possibly get it on without ripping approximately 457 stitches out.

I seriously just want to wear this out into the wilderness.. it would be very hard to pee in I suppose.

You guys have to try this out!! TJMaxx and Marshalls have so many Life is Good t-shirts at great prices and they are seriously so comfy and high quality.  I have been wearing the long sleeve one for three days now and wore the white one to bed last night!  Of course, try this with any big ol' t-shirt you have.  It is simple once you get the hang of it and you can start whipping these out in about 2 hours! 

Give it a whirl!