Raglan Romper — Shorties/Short Sleeve hack
You’ve all been asking, here it is! The raglan romper hacked into short sleeves and shorties tutorial.
First, start out by printing your pattern (or you can use a one you’ve already printed out). If you don’t have the pattern yet, you can buy it here!
You’ll only need to print these pages: 1–2, 4–6, 8–12 (skip 9 & 12 if doing sizes NB — 12/18)
Let’s start with cutting the shorties! I’m using the Shorties/Romper pattern here. You could use another shorties/bummies pattern you have on hand, or if you have the Placket Romper you can use the shorts cut line on that. If you don’t have any of those patterns you can just eye ball it!
Lay the shorties on top of the pattern pieces and trace the curve.
The most important thing to remember is that you want the sides from the armpit to the shorts to be the same length and you want the bottom of the shorts to line up pretty evenly as shown below.
Now for the sleeve. Grab one of your kiddos t-shirt that has your desired sleeve length and measure from the armpit to the edge of the hem. Mine measured 1.75".
I’m doing a rolled cuff method for the sleeve so if you’re doing that along with me, add 1/2" for seam allowance. If you’re hemming, add 1/4" for seam allowance, then 3/4" for the hem (or whatever width you like your hem to be). My total is 2.25". Take that number and measure each side of your pattern starting at the armpit, make a little mark, draw a straight line across, then cut it out.
Now time to do a little math and figure out how wide to make the cuffs for the sleeves and shorties.
I made some notes on my pattern because I forget things if I don’t write them down. Measure along the curved line of the shorties. Mine both measured 5 7/8" so I added them together for a total of 10.75". Then subtracted 1" for seam allowance, then another .25" so the cuffs stretch a little when putting them on. Here is the more simple equation if my long explanation was too much!
Total width — 1.25" = Cuff Width
Cut two cuffs using the number you just found by 2.5" to get a 1" thick cuff.
For the sleeves measure the width of your pattern piece. Subtract .5" for seam allowance, then another .25".
Sleeve width — .75" = cuff width
Same thing as the leg cuffs, take your width and cut it with a 2.5" height.
I didn’t do a hood for this one so here are all my pieces (binding isn’t pictured, but I used that for the neck). Follow the instructions in the pattern the same as you would for the long sleeved romper. If you’re planning on hemming you’re short sleeves, I would suggest hemming them before sewing down the sides. I’m not a fan of hemming small circles!
Add your shorties cuffs the same way you would add the ankle cuffs! They’re just a lot thinner. I like to sew mine wrong sides together to have the loops of the french terry showing. You can do it however you want!
For the rolled arm cuff, sew the cuff right (or if you’re like me wrong) sides together and fold just like the cuffs in the instructions. Flip your romper RIGHT side out and place the cuff inside the sleeve and sew the full circle.
The raw edge will be showing so fold the cuff up over the sleeve. Press if you’d like, then secure it on the top and bottom with a little straight stitch across the width of the band.
And that’s it!
