This is a re-post of a tutorial I did a couple of weeks ago for Melly Sews, just in case you missed it...
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Hello Melly Sews readers! I'm Rachel and I blog at
nest full of eggs. I have 3 children, 2 of whom are boys. I enjoy sewing, but I have to admit that I mostly sew for my daughter, so I was thrilled to be asked to contribute to the Sew in Tune series because it pushed me to do more boy sewing and I enjoy a challenge. I picked "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles because yellow is my 2nd son's favorite color and the submarine part inspired me to create something water themed and sailor/nautical styled.
Let's start off with the sailor pants... The pattern I used was the
Oliver + S sailboat pants pattern. I found this gray chambray (or is it linen? it's a very lightweight fabric) as a large remnant at a menswear fabric clearance table at a big fabric warehouse, I decided gray would be the perfect neutral to go with the yellow ~ that it would make the yellow really pop. I really liked the idea of adding piping around the button front pant detail which I saw from
Gail at Probably Actually. So yellow piping (made out of broadcloth) it was and this being the first time I'd ever made (or even sewn with) piping I followed
this tutorial on how to make your own piping. 4 yellow buttons with anchors (etsy to the rescue) were the perfect touch. The buttonhole function isn't currently working on my sewing machine, so I used
this tutorial for making a button hole using the zigzag stitch.
For the lining I opted not to use the gray chambray (or linen?) and instead I used yellow fabric with white rain drops (helping with the water theme going on here), it is from the Hoodie's Collection "Raindrops" for Timeless Treasures Fabrics. I took extra care to make sure the thread color matched the fabric (gray thread on gray fabric and yellow thread on yellow fabric).
Now let's move onto the yellow striped sailor shirt...
For this I repurposed an old adult sized long sleeve white t-shirt from my closet.
I reduced it to my son's size and by doing this I got rid of those ugly underarm stains! I simply turned the shirt inside out, on top placed a t-shirt that fits my son well, and traced it with a purple disappearing ink marker. This purple line became my sewing line. After sewing it, I trimmed off the excess fabric, and turned it right side out.
I painted on yellow stripes by using yellow Tulip soft fabric paint, this was a technique that I learned from
Justine from Sew Country Chick that she shared at Project Run&Play. The stripes are spaced about 1 inch apart from each other and I used rulers to help with the spacing and also for aiding in painting straight lines.
It took about an hour to paint the stripes on one side of the shirt, then it takes 4 hours for the paint to dry. Flip it over and repeat.
Lastly I sewed on 4 yellow buttons with anchors to the shoulders (2 on each shoulder).
Thanks Melissa and Stacey for having me!
