Tutorial: Men's to Boy's Dress Shirt

We have an interesting scenario in our house: My husband has a ton of white dress shirts that are in great condition except for the elbows. My son does not have many dress shirts because I hate coughing up $15 for a shirt he's going to grow out of so fast and will only wear on Sundays. A predicament if I didn't sew. But, since I do, I use all of those old white shirts and give them new life! Welcome, free little white shirt!

What you'll need for this project:

~ one old men's dress shirt (you can use whatever type of dress shirt you want to!)

~ thread

~ dress shirt pattern

~ buttons

The first two things I do when making a dress shirt is take all of the buttons off. That way I have buttons for the new shirt and I didn't have to spend a dime! Love that. The other step is cutting the shirt, along the seams, into all the different pieces. Like so:

Next, I press all of the pieces and then lay the pattern pieces out. My little boy wears about a size 3T.

Sleeves:

Fold the sleeve in half and place the pattern along the fold. You'll want 2 separate pieces. Set them aside.

Front and Back:

Now, I actually can't fit a 3T on the front of a man's shirt without covering the pocket. So, I take off the pocket. In my experience, I haven't had problems with the holes left by the stitches in the pocket once I've washed the shirt. I cut out 2 front pieces.

I do the same for the back, making sure to fold it in half and place the fold on the pattern along the same line. You'll want just 1 back piece.

The two pieces will look something like this:

You'll notice the fabric on the front piece (red) sticks out farther than my pattern. That's because I didn't feel like taping another piece of paper to the pattern to account for the button holes. 

Next, I like to make sure the shoulders and armpits are in similar distance so I don't end up with a funny shaped shirt.

With the extra material from the front and back I cut out my neckband x2, collar x2, and sleeve cuffs (if doing long sleeves).

Constructing the shirt:

I like to start with the button part of the shirt. I take the front pieces and fold under the edge twice then press. You can add interfacing here if you want, but for a little boy I prefer not to. You'll see in my picture where the fabric is folded over on top of the pattern. That's the extra space I was talking about and didn't put into the pattern.

Once you've folded under each side of the front, pin, and then sew.

I like to sew right on the edge of the fabric. At this point, I move on to the rest of the shirt and add buttonholes and buttons at the very end.

Pin, right sides together, the back to the front of the shirt at the shoulders. Sew. Set it aside.

Next I pin the two pieces of the collar together and sew (right sides together). Leave the bottom open. Trim off the corners, turn inside out, and press.Trimming the corners will give you a sharper corner.

Next, I take the two neckband pieces and turn up the bottom edge and press. Do not sew them together yet!

When both neckband pieces are pressed, I place the collar between them and pin along the top. Starting at one bottom edge, I sew up along the curve, along the top (making sure the collar is sewn in), and then down the curve to the edge.

You should have a collar and neckband when finished. The bottom of the neckband should still be opened. Press down the neckband.

Now that the neckband and collar are sewn together as well as the front and back, it pin the two pieces together. I place each corner on the neckband flush with the edge of the front of the shirt.

I then work my way to the back of the shirt. If you end up making the neck on your shirt bigger than your neckband, no worries. A lot of mens' dress shirts have a little pleat in the back. When you've pinned the pieces together, sew them together making sure to catch the top and bottom neckbands.

After the neckband is sewn to the shirt, pin and sew the sleeves. Once the sleeves are sewn on, sew down the sleeve and side of the shirt.

After the shirt has been completely put together, you've only got a few more steps: hem the sleeves, hem the bottom of the shirt, add buttons and buttonholes. And with that, you're little man is ready to strut his stuff!