In my eyes, she is a “Sewlebrity,” and here’s why I’ve got a “Crush” on her!
I’m excited to talk about this darling girl and her blog (which just got a new spiffy design, by the way)! Sumo is way fun, and I enjoy her projects a lot! What I especially love is that she usually makes not one, but two of every outfit, for her two adorable little girls. I get such a kick out of that! You’ll see what I mean at the end of this tutorial! So glad to have Sumo here today!

Today, she is showing us how to make this sweet shirt with adorable sleeves! (What a cute little model)!

But first, here are a few reasons why I have “fallen in love” with her blog. 
Bustle Skirts

T-Shirt Dress

 3 Tiered Dresses

Hello everyone!

I’m Sumo, or Summer if you wanna get formal.

I blog over at Sumo’s Sweet Stuff.

It’s my little place in the blogging world where you can come to find sewing and crafting inspiration. Sewing is my favorite creative outlet, but I’m not afraid to bust out the Mod Podge and paint when the mood strikes. You might also catch me professing my love of Target (or the popcorn store as we call it), talking about my relationships with Lucy (Cameo) and Veronica (sewing machine), or bragging about my three beautiful girls. I have an extreme fondness for Diet Coke, my minivan, historical fiction, and most sweets.

I’m pretty excited to be over here today. It’s a pretty amazing lineup, and I’m honored to be included amongst so many other great seamstresses!

A few weeks ago at my Zumba class (any other Zumba lovers out there??) my friend and I saw a girl wearing a super cute knit shirt. And of course, we said, “We can make that!”

So I did. And now you can, too.

Here’s what you need:

– knit fabric

– lace

– sewing machine/accessories

I’ve got three girls, hence the three colors of lace!

You’ll need to start off by measuring your little gal from elbow to elbow, with her arms spread out wide, like this:

You’ll also need to measure how long you want the shirt from shoulder to where you want it to sit. I did right to my daughter’s hips.

I wanted the lace parts to be about two inches, so I took a couple inches off of my width measurement. For instance, my daughter’s arm span was 20 inches. I cut the width at 18 inches. This made the sleeves slightly longer than hitting at her elbow (as you can see above). You can adjust this however you like!

Cut your fabric with the fold being the width measurement that you took from elbow to elbow.

Go ahead and hem up the two bottom edges, not attaching them to each other at all! Account for your hem when cutting your length!

Set that aside, and get your lace out for cutting. Like I said, I wanted my lace to be about two inches, so I cut it four inches wide so that I could just fold it over when I attached it to the main body of the shirt. Since my hem took off about an inch from my length measurement, I cut my lace about an inch shorter than my length measurement. For example, my original length measurement was 15 inches, so I cut my lace to 14 inches. Do this with your lace folded over – you want it to be all one piece!

Unfold the body of your shirt. Fold the lace in half, length wise, and pin the raw edges to the raw edge of the wide of your shirt. Sew it in place.

Finish your edges, flip the lace out and top stitch.

Repeat on the other side.

With your shirt folded back over, you are going to find the exact middle, and cut a slit for the head, making sure to catch the front and the back. Start smaller! You can always cut more if it doesn’t work. For my four year old, I cut the slit to five inches.

It’s knit, so you can just leave it as is if you want!

Now you need to figure out how fitted you want the shirt to be. I measured across my daughter, and added 1-2 inches on each side so that she would have room to move. I also measured down to how far I wanted the side seams to come up – close to her arm pit. Pin both layers of the shirt in place.

Sew where your pins are, being careful to sew through both layers (make sure your bottom hems are matched up!) and not to go further than where your last pin is! Use a zig zag or interlocking stitch to give the shirt a bit of stretch.

That’s it!

Doesn’t look like much of a shirt, does it? But then you put it on a cute girl, and ta-da!

Show off those flowy sleeves!

And hello, cute baby!

Pretty cute, right?

And where is my third daughter you ask? Well, my two year old has a huge aversion to having her picture taken at the moment, so this is where she was hiding during our little photo shoot.

Here are the measurements I used for my three girls:

4T

Width (on fold): 18 inches
Length: 15 inches
Lace (cut two on fold): 4.5 inches by 14 inches
12 inches across between side seams
5 inch slit for head

3T

Width (on fold): 17 inches
Length: 14 inches
Lace (cut two on fold): 4.5 inches by 13 inches
12 inches across between side seams
4.5 inch slit for head

6-9 months

Width (on fold): 12 inches
Length: 11 inches
Lace (cut two on fold): 3.5 inches by 11 inches
Aaaand I didn’t write down what I did for the other two parts. Sorry!

Thanks for having me today! I hope to see you over at Sumo’s Sweet Stuff!