VIEWERS REQUEST: COPY YOUR FAVORITE T-SHIRT!

Hello guys and welcome back to my channel, my name is Luigi and today I will show you how to

copy

your

favorite

t-

shirt

, so one of the things that I love to do, besides creating my clothes from scratch, is to see something that I really love in a store, buy it, take it home, rub it and create a pattern and then make that garment as many times as you want with as many fabrics as you want, so we'll start with very basic, I'll show you how to

copy

your

favorite

t-

shirt

, let's start now. If you are new to sewing, you may want to check out my online sewing school, academy.com, where we teach steps in depth. step by step sewing lessons now, if you just need a refresher course, you can watch the sewing basics video linked in the description box below, then come back and join me, guys, what are my favorite things to use our Tshirts?

It's not always easy to find a t-shirt in the fabric I like or the size I want, so what I love to do is take some of my favorite t-shirts and then copy them so I can make them with any material. fabric I feel like it, so I'm going to show you real quick how to do a quick and easy way to transfer your t-shirt, so what I like to do is fold my t-shirt in half and then press the center of So I can create this little fold here. I take my piece of paper and fold it in half.

Now I get this paper from Amazon, but you can tape it down, you know, five or six sheets of printer paper, if you have them. It's useful at home enough that you can copy half of your shirt, so the reason I like to use the larger piece is because I like to fold it in half that way when I trace the middle and then open my paper. I have a complete. front piece versus half piece so what you're going to do is create your fold and you're going to place the fold along the fold of your paper now if you want to put something to hold it in place you can but it's not really that necessary, It's not so surgical, you can use a marker, pencil, highlighter or pen, whatever you have on hand.

I like to use a tracing wheel. This is a tracing wheel that has some spikes, but the one that comes more or less basic at Joanns or any sewing kit you can probably get doesn't have the little sharp edges, but it does have the little rounded edges and when you press firmly Create small marks on the paper that you can then trace so you can use either method. I'm going to show you both, so the first thing you're going to do is literally copy the stroke around the body of your shirt. Now you can also use a ruler if you want to be super precise and I'm just going to make some dashed lines, I'll join all of that together later and then I'll do the same thing on the side and now we're going to make our shoulder so make my shoulder without including the band, so stop before the band and then I would use my tracing wheel here to mark this area, so this is my front collar now, if I take it off I have little marks, you can't see them on the camera. but they're there, I can see them and I can feel them, so that makes it easier because then I could just go over with my marker and follow those little dotted lines that I made to get a really accurate front collar, if you don't.

I don't have that right, if you don't want to have one of these on hand you can use a basic pin and just run it through where the neck line is and make a dot and then just move it an inch or so and make a dot motion. Again make a dot and continue until you have the entire neck line in place. Now we're going to do the same thing here around the eye of the arms so you can use the tracing wheel and just go over it right there. seam line and then when I remove it I can see the little dots that I just created, but if not you can turn the sleeve back along that seam line that you see and then do it little by little and now you can continue go ahead and remove this and now we have the front of our t-shirt so if we go ahead and cut around our lines when we open it up we have a full front so I'm going to label this front t-shirt however before we cut it we need to add margin of seam thanks to you, so this without adding seam allowance will be a little bit smaller than the t-shirt you just copied, so you have to add seam allowance, so just grab your ruler.

I like to add at least an inch to the hem. of my t-shirts you can always shorten them or lengthen them and then I'll add 5/8 of an inch to my side and then I'll add it to my arms. I'm going to add it to my shoulder and I'm just going to add a half inch to my neck, okay, now we're going to go ahead and cut along the outside lines that we just created. Now that I have the front piece, we'll use this to create our back piece and then I just brought up the neckline, so I folded another piece of paper to cut out my back and I'll use my waist pattern, which are very large washers from the store. home improvements I'm going to do.

Make sure my fold lines line up and you're basically going to cut around this, the only difference is the back and then the neckline in the back, so what we're going to do is use the back of our neck on our t-shirt. -shirt to copy the height, so I will fold it in half. I'm going to match my shoulders and then using my little sharp tool here, my tracing wheel, I'm going to trace across the back and this is the distance from the back. of the neck and the front of the neck now you can go ahead and take your scissors and cut all the way around now that you have the back you can go ahead and mark it now we're going to copy our sleeve right now.

I'm going to copy our cover, so I've folded my paper in half. My fold is here. I'm going to position my cover so that it sits on that fold line, like this. Now you need to make sure you iron your cover so it fits. it's not wrinkled, you need to be able to get this armpit seam and hem in place, okay, so use weights if you need to keep everything nice and flat, okay, now I'm just going to use my marker and just go along from the edge of my hem and then the armpit, you want to make sure you understand that and then I'll use my little tracing wheel.

I'm going to check and again remember that you can do this by simply lifting and marking along the seam line that I'm going to remove. this and now I'm going to add my seam allowance so you can add whatever you want to the bottom. I'm going to go ahead and do 5/8. I'm going to do a half inch on my armpit seam and then a half inch. along the sleeve and now I'm just going to cut and now you have the sleeve okay so now we need to remove a little bit here on the back of the sleeve so we need to trim about a quarter of an inch and shape it more easy to do first is to fold it in half and then fold the sleeve in half again and what you're going to do is start from nothing here on this first fold line until you get up to this little center fold line here, you'll go from nothing up to about a quarter of an inch and when you start to get to this final fold, you're going to start to blend back into the original sleeve so I'm just going to show you that I'm I'm going to do it by hand, I'm just going to eyeball it so I'm going to go to a quarter of an inch. inch.

Oh, now that I'm on my last fold line, I'm going to start going back to my original sleeve and then. I'm going to cut that out and then I'm just going to make two little notches so I know that's the back of my sleeve and then just one here and I'm going to make a little line for my shoulder, okay? once you have all three pieces. you have your sleeve you have your back and your front you are going to cut two from your sleeve you are going to cut one from your back and one from your front now the last thing we need to do before we start sewing our t -shirt is to make our band for the neck, so what I'm going to do is make it as flat as I can and then use the tape measure and measure how long it is, so for me that's about ten and a half and I'm going to add a quarter of an inch to my piece from the pattern, which will give me a half inch seam allowance and I want it to be two inches wide, so I'm going to measure my ten and a half plus that quarter. -inches I'm adding for the seam allowance when you unfold this piece you'll have a full half inch and I want it to be two inches wide and my rulers two inches wide so I'm just going to copy around my ruler making sure I'm on the fold of my paper so that when I open it up I have a full piece and these two inches in case you're wondering what seam allowance is included and now you're just going to cut around this and I can label it neckband and fold central.

I'm going to make a little line, that's just what I know, this is the center front of the neckband, so I cut the neckband on the right and so when I open this up. It is a long and complete piece. I have two sleeves that I cut and I have the front and the back. Now that we have all our pieces, we can sell this t-shirt together. Alright, we're going to start by sewing our shoulders together, so you're going to lay the right sides from front to back and you're going to go ahead and pin well, now I want you to go to your sewing machine, you're just going to sew across your shoulders using five eighths of an inch. of seam allowance, well, I went ahead and increased my seam allowance and pressed my seams.

Now I'm going to go ahead and pin and sew my sleeve using the flat method, this is how I always glue anything to my sleeves using a knit fabric, so I made the two little notches for the back of my sleeve and then I did the shoulder and I made the single notch to let me know that's the front so first I'm going to match my shoulder seam and pin it and then I'm going to make sure that the single notch is on the front I'm going to pin it and because it's woven and it stretches, I'm just going to pull a little bit to make the sleeve top easier and then do the same thing with the back, okay, now you're going to go to your sewing machine and you're going to sew using half inch seam allowances, yes, I'm going to backstitch at the beginning and the end, then I'm just going to pull lightly, you're going to pin the other sleeve the same way, okay?

Once you've sewn both sleeves together, you're going to go ahead and place the right sides facing each other and we're going to pin the armpit seam and then the side seam and you're just going to sew it together using five-eighths of an inch. seam allowance so I'm going to go ahead and pin and if you want your shirt to be a little baggy or maybe you want it a little bit wider you can always add larger seam allowances okay you're going to pin the other armpit. and the side seam the same way, head over to your sewing machine, you're just going to sew using five-eighths of an inch of seam allowance and then you're going to finish the seam allowance with either a serger or your zig-zag stitch, once you have your side.

Once the seams are done, we're going to go ahead and make the neck band, so I went ahead and sewed both ends to create this little loop and now what I want you to do is take it to your ironing board, fold it in half and give it a good press, fold it with the wrong sides facing right, I went ahead and pressed the neck band into place and now what we're going to do is pin it to the neck band so that it has a little bump that I marked on my neck. The band remembers to just let me know where the center front was, so I'm going to pin it to the center front of my shirt and then I'm going to pin it to the center back.

Now when you put it on you may notice that your neckband is maybe too big for your neckline which can happen very easily and you want the neckband to be a little bit smaller than your neck opening because You want it to snap into place, so if you feel like the neckband is too big or won't snap or you don't feel like you need to pull very hard to hold it, you may want to remove some of the length of the neckband. Okay, now that I have the night band pinned, I'm going to sew it all together. around using a half-inch seam allowance.

I'm going to start in the center of my backstitching at the beginning and end, go ahead and sew the seam allowance and then press the neck band up. Now go ahead and make sure you press your neckband into place sometimes it just needs a really good press to get it to lay flat now the only thing left to do is hem the sleeve and of course the hem of the t-shirt folding under the hem. assignment you gave yourself and then sewed with a narrow zig-zag stitch and you're all good, that's all. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, be sure to follow me on Instagram if you aren't already. mimi g style until next time peace