Up - Cycle shirt to pajamas

Today has been a pretty awesome day.  I got up early, did my laundry, made my meal plan, tidied and some how I still had some time to sew!  I was recently at a friends house and she is moving so she had a lot of clothes she was getting rid of.  I love when people think of me when they are getting rid of clothing, because I LOVE to upcycle items.  I am always on the look out for large shirts that are a nice knit material because it's always so soft.  I picked this shirt out without a project in mind and today I pulled it out with the intention of making a cardigan which quickly changed to a full pajama set for my son.  I started out with the pants and when I was done I looked at the remains and wondered if I could get a top out of it as well.  I'm glad I tried because it worked out wonderfully!  Here is my process.

First I cut the sleeves off, these will become the legs of the pajama pants.

Then I lined it up to create the front and back panels

Now its cut.  In hind shight, I would cut the panels longer and straight across.  Sew those together and then attach the legs to that.

No matter, it worked out the way I did it.  I overlocked it all together and prepared the elastic.  I just sewed the pants to the elastic while stretching the elastic slightly so it was all eased in.

Once that is attached.  I moved on to the shirt.

For the shirt I just placed one of his current t shirts on top of the shirt and only cut the front portion.  This is because I moved the shirt down an inch from the shoulder seam of the original shirt.  Doing this will make the neck hole smaller, which is what I wanted since it is a smaller shirt.

Then once the front is cut out I moved it up to align it back up with the seam of the shirt and cut all along the smaller shirt.

For the sleeves of the small shirt I opened up the shirt and aligned it like so.  The sleeves are made of the sides of the bigger shirt.  I hope that makes sense.  I placed new front and back touching and cut along that curve to create the sleeve.

Once everything was cut out I started constructing the shirt.  First I sewed up the shoulder seams with the front and the back of the shirt right sides together.  Then I added the sleeves all along the curve of the shoulder seam.  Finally I sewed all the way up the sides, continuing on to the arm pit of the sleeve and out to the wrist.

Here is the finished product!

He has already fallen in some dirt, not 10 minutes after putting it on.

The last time I made my little guy pajamas was before his second birthday.  Those are getting a little short on the legs so I'm glad I can make him some new ones.

I didn't bother hemming up the shirt or the sleeves because knits are awesome and don't unravel!
If I was to hem them up I would have used a twin needle to get that nice double line of stitching ready to wear clothing has.