Firehouse Raglan Tee for Little Man-- tutorial

Oh, man... have I missed posting tutorials!  I'm serious, folks.  I really have.
Have Fall illnesses been kicking anyone else's butts?  Or is it just our little clan.

But speaking of Fall, here's a great little number for your little guy (or girl, really... it's gender-neutral) that's soft and comfy for those brisk days!

Materials:
shirt that fits your tyke
knit fabric
double needle (though it's not necessary!)
sewing gear

Instructions:
Grab a shirt that fits your little one and fold it in half.  Place it on the fold of your main fabric, making sure that it stretches from side-to-side.

You're going to cut a straight line from about halfway to the neckline to the armpit.  Use your shirt for the width measurement.  Also follow your shirt's collar as a template.  Cut two of these.
**FYI-- I cut my neckline way too high... I thought about fixing it here, but I wanted to show you how forgiving this shirt is.  So if you're looks like the neckhole is going to be too small, don't sweat it for now.

For the sleeves, you want that same angle that you had for your main piece.  However, cut them (again, on the fold) slightly skinnier and angle them in a little to where the cuff will be.  Use your shirt to determine the length of sleeve.  Cut two.

Here are your pieces, shown on the fold and opened up.

Place one body piece right sides together to the sleeve pieces and sew up.  Then sew the other body piece to one sleeve, but leave one seam open.  Here you can see how small my head hole would be.  If you have a pinhead baby, cool.  But if you have a child with a human head, you'll want to adjust this.

I just fold in half like this and trim away.  It's really that simple.

Whew.  That's better! :)

Cut a 2-inch wide piece of stretchy knit fabric (I used the same that I had for the sleeves... ribbed knit is good for this, too!).  You want it slightly shorter than the measurement of your neckhole.  Eyeballing mine, it was about 12 inches, so I cut my strip 10.5 inches by 2 inches.   (Sorry... not super detailed...  Again, this is pretty forgiving!)

Fold the strip in half and press.

Find the halfway mark of that strip and pin it halfway in between your two open edges, lining up the raw edge of the strip with the neckline edge.  You'll also want to pin the ends of the strip to the edges of the openings (not shown).

Using a stitch that stretches (zig-zag works), stretch your strip as you sew it to the neckline.  When you finish, it should start rounding out on its own, like this:

Pin that last seam together and, making sure your new collar strip is UP, sew up that side.

Here's what you've got!

If you have a double needle, here's a nice place to use it.  (A tip on threading a double needle that I haven't really seen many places: If you don't have a separate thread holder, make sure your two spools have the thread coming off of them in opposite directions; it keeps them from getting as wound up).  Sew the collar down, with one line of stitches on each side of the seam.  You can also zig-zag or just do nothing.

Since I have my double needle on, I press the sleeves over and hem them.  Again, you can use a zig-zag stitch.

Now fold your shirt in half, right sides together, and sew up the sides and under the sleeves. 

To hem, I pressed my seams out (you could finish them with a zig-zag, but with three small kids, I have to use my time wisely and "make it work").  Then I pressed my hem up and, again, used my double needle to stitch it.

I used red and blue thread for that because, well, I'm crazy like that.  I kind of wish I had used the red on the sleeves and neckline, too!

Last but not least, I like to press my seams of the collar strip and sleeves open and secure them with two straight stitches, like so...

There you have it!  A nice little raglan tee for Little Man!  He'll be thrilled... see? ;)