How to Sew a Jersey Shirt - the Ila Royal Tee

Greetings and Blessed Love!

So I had leftovers from the kaftan gown tutorial and I decided to show the Sistren how to make your own tops - it's a tee shirt but a little more stylish - and it requires only two seamlines if you cut it perfect enough! It also requires little fabric. You should need no more than 1 yard of fabric, half a yard if a size medium or small. The method is basically the same as making the dress, just shorter.

I call it the Ila RoyalTee. As I am basically self-taught, this is my version of a baby tee that is not form fitting as I was trying to move away from such tight clothing which are not conducive to modesty or hot weather lol. I prefer comfort, and I prefer to be elegant or lovely over sexy and I find this design gives me what I want from a tee. All in all this is a design I decided to try using a Tshirt as the outline to start with in the beginning, but this tutorial shows how to make it with just measurements like with the gown. This is a basic design that does not even need to follow the measurement formula as you can just use a large Tshirt. To make it fitted don't add the seam allowance to the traced outline of the shirt.

Materials:

jersey or knit fabric

scissors

pins

sewing machine

thread

yard rule/measuring tape

1. Fold your material in half so the fold is at the top, right sides together. Line up your pattern properly if necessary.

2. Get the Tee shirt you want to use and turn it on the wrong side. pin it to the fabric, outline it:
(umm my shirt got these marks from my hands digging into the fabric - not very attractive in the photo but what can I say I can't undo it!)

3. This is the method for freehand:

Know your width which is your hips + 1 inch seam allowance
(for me a size small/med its 18.5 inches)

Know your length - from shoulder to where you want it to stop - I go to just under the buttocks/hips so I can have a buff over. But in this particular case, I just went to the end of the fabric.

Know your armpit length = 9 inches

Neckline make it 6 inches wide and 3 1/2 inches deep. The neckline will be able to stretch in different ways.


 4. Measure 9 inches down from the top fold and put two pins where the 8 inches stops on either side of the fabric.

5. Measure and mark out the width and draw two side lines down in line with the 9 inches markers.

6. Draw the lines coming to the side for the sleeve - 3 inches wide is enough. Go up to meet the fold. to get a ruffled pointed look which is nice also, make the line slanted outward

Draw a little curve under the angles of the armpit.

7. After outlining the tee or making freehand measurements (remove tee)  pin together inside of the lines and cut out the tee.

8. Fold the Tee in half, mark out 3 inches from the side fold, and 3 1/2 inches down and draw a curve. Pin and cut out the neckline.

9. Sew up the two sides, making sure to keep the ends straight and together so that no hemline is needed.

Finished!

There you have a perfectly Royal Tee, appropriate, stylish and comfortable!

I hope that this tutorial helps you to create something great for yourself - if you want to do a crop top version then make it 3 inches wide and shorter!

Blessed love!
Ila