Recycled Jammies

Inspired by Alabama Chanin and an orange event shirt that came home in a size that no one could wear, I recycled the t-shirt into jammies for the wee ones.

For Orion's jammies, I used the bottom hem of the original shirt as the bottom hem of the shorts and I cut down the sleeves of the original shirt to make the sleeves for this shirt. The tractor fabric came from JoAnn Fabrics some time ago.

And then the littlest angel needed a matching shirt. There was just enough fabric left on the original shirt (without using the goofy printed words and logo) to cut sleeves for the little one. You can see in the photo above the recycled hem on the big boy's shirt. I used a zig-zag on the bottom hems, to ensure adaquate stretch and because I was in too much of a hurry to dig out the double ballpoint needle.

Since jammies seem to always come in pairs, and since I had a lot of the tractor fabric, I worked on a second pair for each boy. So far Soleo has his second pair. The blue fabric and ribbing were in my stash, part of the motherload of hand-me-down knits*. I had just enough to make the shirt and shorts. And for those, I did dig out the double needle and you can see I put a proper hem on the sleeves, the shirt, and the shorts. (Well, you'll have to trust me on the hem of the shirt.)


For most shirts, I recommend topstitching around the neck band, to tack down the ribbing and make sure that the seam allowance doesn't curl to the outside after washing. In this instance, I skipped the step because a) my baby has a huge head and I worry about sufficient stretch, even when using the double needle and b) the ribbing is so much wider than the seam allowance that I think the ribbing will prevent the seam allowance from curling and c) these are just jammies!

*My mom's mom used to own a fabric store called The Fabric Lady in Boise, Idaho in the late 70s. We still have old spools of thread, some patterns (they're almost vintage), and a LOT of fabric! I grew up wearing clothes made from some of these knits and now that I have little ones to sew for, some of the fabric is getting passed down to me! Part of the greatness of this is that the knits are 100% cotton and of a quality that is down right hard to find these days!

I guess some families pass down actual clothes. We pass fabric. It always fits.