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Hey ya’ll!  Have you missed me?  With the selling, packing and moving of our home in Indianapolis all happening within a 2 week time period – my life has been chaos.  Currently we are homeless and visiting family in Atlanta.  We hope to be moved to Columbus, OH the 12th and then close on our new house August 15th and move in the 17th.  So needless to say, our life is still a little crazy.  I can’t wait to show you our new house.  It is beautiful on the outside for sure, but needs a little IC touch on the inside.  I can’t wait to get started.  Anyway I made these t-shirt patch shorts for Isaac a couple of months ago and they have quickly become his favorite summer outfit.  It is usually paired with a bare chest. 🙂 This is a great way to get rid of old tee shirts or you can find a zillion at any thrift store.

Upcycled tshirt shorts

making shorts out of old tee shirts
1.  The first things I did was cut out all different sized rectangles and square fabrics of some old tee shirts.  Then I laid them out, and like a puzzle, I matched them together making them all fit.

upcycling tee shirts into shorts

2.  Then I just serged them together (with seams outward) to make one larger piece of fabric that would be big enough to cut my shorts out of.

tee shirt shorts

tshirt shorts

3.  Make enough patched t-shirts that you have enough fabric for your shorts.

upcycled tee shirt shorts

4.  Take a pair of shorts and your serged t-shirt fabric and fold them in half.  Use the shorts as a pattern.  You can see I cut straight up from the crotch in order to account for the waistband elastic and cut about a 1/2” bigger all the way around to account for the seam allowance.

tee shirt upcycled

5.  Use the piece you just cut out as the pattern to cut the other side out.  Make sure you flip your pattern over so you cut the opposite leg.

tee shirt short pattern

6.  Now you have two pattern pieces.  This is what one piece looks like unfolded.

tee shirt short-pattern

7.  Fold the pieces back in half and sew from the bottom of the short leg to the crotch on both legs.

making shirts out of old tee shirts

upcycled tee shirt short tutorial

8.  Now fold them so that new seam is in the middle.  Leave one right side out and flip one right side in.

easy diy t-shirt shorts

9.  Put one leg inside the other leg with wrong sides together.  Pin and sew the crotch area.

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10.  Now we need to make the waist band.  Cut two pieces of tee shirt the width of the waist of the shorts.  Sew the sides up.

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11.  Fold it in half and sew this to the top of your shorts leaving an opening so you can put elastic in it.  This is the only part I sew with the seams in.  All the rest of the shorts were seams out for fun.

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sewing the waistband of tee shirt shorts

12.  Measure your child’s waist and cut the elastic to that size.  Using a safety pin thread the 1” non roll elastic through the waist band.  Sew the waistband together.

waistband of t-shirt shorts

waistband of tee shirt shorts

13.  Then sew your waistband shut.  Lastly finish off the pant legs.  Since I used a serger on this project I just serged the bottom edge to finish it off.  This is also where you can cut down the length if you need to.

serged tee shirt shorts

Then make one really expressive boy model for you!

front of t-shirt shorts

back to tee shirt shortstee shirt shorts upcycled

For more t-shirt upcycling ideas click here.

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6 Comments

  1. like them and what a handsome young man. glad he likes modeling your creation. he really does seem to like them

  2. Ok, I rarely post a comment, but OMG!!! These are so awesome. I am going to start collecting shits..gotta do this. Thanks so much and your blog is awesome.

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