Happy New Year and welcome back to a brand-new installment of See It/Sew It/Share It, where we use ready-to-wear styles as inspiration for our handmade wardrobes. This month I’m excited to share a hack that I did to one of my most-used patterns, the Grand Slam raglan from Peek-a-Boo Patterns. I love perusing the boy selections at crewcuts by J.Crew, but I don’t love paying those prices for casual clothes for my little guy who seems to get stained by just LOOKING at something messy. ;)

J. Crew has had some cute variations on a basic raglan for the past few seasons, and I decided I’d start by playing around with the striped sleeve. To do this, I took my ruler and simply cut straight down my sleeve pattern piece from the neckline to the wrist. You’ll need to make sure to add seam allowance to each of the edges that is cut, so you don’t distort the sizing when you sew the pieces together. Also, my inside edge is cut on the fold, so if that’s the case for your pattern piece you’ll want to make sure to cut the stripe on the fold as well. If your raglan sleeve is cut flat, you can just remove the stripe from the center at whatever width you’d like (again remembering to add seam allowance).

I love the solid colorblocked look of the inspiration pic, but alas, my kiddo deemed it “boring.” He’s into vehicles of any kind, so I decided to use two of the custom motorcycle knits I’ve had in my stash. This is a great project for using up odds and ends! He was thrilled with his new shirt, and has asked for more already. Maybe I’ll get to do a colorblocked version after all??!