Slouchy Raglan Tutorial

My newest shirt! It's an oversized raglan with a kangaroo pocket! It's made with a black double-sided knit (is it called a ponte knit?) and a blue spandex-y fabric. I got them from Fabrix in SF. You should go there, prices are very cheap, and though i've seen many complaints in reviews on the organization, I like it and I'm sure real fashion districts just sell bolts of fabric on the sides of the streets. Besides the blue and black fabric, I also got a beautiful purple fabric. It's one of the richest, deepest, wine-y-est purples I've ever seen. Even though blue is my 2nd favorite color (olive green forever), I like the purple better. I don't know why. Here's some pics of the fabric. (the 1st pic color isn't very accurate, the other pics are better, but it's still not the right shade--my lighting's not very good)

This shirt is based on jmorco's raglan here. It is comfy and slouchy and I love that there's a pocket, because I usually have something to put in there, like my glasses case (they are for distance, so it's a hassle to put them on and take them back off to stick in my backpack).

Tutorial

Materials: 1 yd of black knit fabric, 1/2 yd of aqua or contrasting color, sewing machine, thread, scissors, pins, old loose t-shirt, newspaper or pattern paper

1. Get your old t-shirt and cut an off the shoulder neckline.

2. Now fold your shirt in half and mark a line (with pins) a couple inches below the shoulder seam on the neckline down to the armpit. Now fold the sleeve on the line in. This is your 'pattern.'

3. Fold your black fabric in half, line up your 'pattern' on the fold, and cut around it. Cut another. (note: in the pic below i messed up at first and did a fold from the shoulder to the armpit. DON'T DO THIS. fold it a couple inches down from the neckline to the armpit, like in the above picture. and don't forget seam allowances.)

4. Now unfold the sleeve and line up the shoulder seam on the fold of a piece of creased newspaper. Trace around your sleeve and cut out your pattern piece.

5. Now cut out 2 sleeve pieces from contrasting knit. Add seam allowance.

6. Sew sleeves on. I do this by sewing the side of the sleeve to the armhole, and then repeating with the 2nd shirt piece. Here's some pics to help explain this process.

7. Now it's time for a pocket! Cut out a rectangle the size you want the pocket to be. Now fold it in half and cut out 2 quarter-circles from the upper hand corner, opposite to the fold.

8. To sew on the pocket, mark the center of the pocket with a pin. Now fold your shirt in half, and pin half of the pocket to the shirt. Unfold your shirt and pin the rest of the pocket on.

9. This is what you should have now. I hemmed the bottom and added binding to the sleeves, but you don't have to since knit doesn't fray.

10. Now add neck binding. I followed this tutorial (using the last method).

11. Ignore the purple pajama bottoms.

12. Wear with pride!

Have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day (yep, i had to copy and paste that word from google)!

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