Another hip hop recital, another bit of sports/streetwear sewing for meeee.

The brief: costumes were to be red, white and black. I instantly thought of TLC and in particular, the baby tees and sweats over shorts looks they wore to the Kids’ Choice Awards and (sans Tommy boxers) in a photoshoot that I would love to figure out the history of. These ones:

So I set out to make a baby tee and shorts and searched for ready-made sweats.

The fabric for both the t-shirt and the shorts is a 1m piece of cotton blend rib knit from Fabcycle. I did buy it specifically for this project (along with a cotton satin, and a wool woven for a Williwear pants project I’m working on).

Myself, Cassidy and Kenny looking so cute and jazzy

The baby tee

Darting and taking width out of the shirt pattern

I was a little surprised to find that for the wealth of t-shirt patterns out there, I didn’t find much in the way of baby tees. Obviously could be re-drafted from something else pretty easily but I didn’t want to invest much energy in that. I used the Mercadito de moldes Remera pattern, but wound up making pretty heavy edits that made me ask… have I saved any time or effort here?

Issue one… the print size guide was off. I printed the pattern twice at 100% and both times, found the 10cm guide off by a little under a cm (like 94 mm). So selecting size I tried to calculate the difference and account for that, and cut a size L. The cut lines were also not consistent, using different dotted lines but around curves sections of lines would become unbroken and I found this made me second-guess cutting.

The armscyes were much much baggier than I liked the look of, so I wound up darting out a good 3 cm at the front. I then redrafted the curve on the sleevehead to remove the same amount and add a bit more of an anatomical shape. I also took out probably 6 cm total from the sides. So maybe I should have sewed an M as I sized into and avoided some of these issues but these are still large amounts so I don’t think it would have been a panacea. Plus, the guide measurement being off made the whole thing such a gamble I think I’d be stressed regardless. I also didn’t hem the top at all, finding the length already where I wanted it to land. That, at least, is more a matter of taste and not a strike against the pattern.

Once I had a shape I was happy with I needed to add stripes. Somehow finding a black and white stripe knit in either fabric or clothing form eluded me, through travels to thrift stores, Fabricland, and Nefelibata. I found instead a blue-and-white stripe actual baby t-shirt in my scraps and painted it with black screen printing ink. I did this the day before class photos sooooo I also had to play fast and loose with setting time and I am delighted to report that applying the ink then drying them over air heating registers in my house got them ready to iron in just a couple of hours (ironing wrapped in paper towel just in case of transfers but really, none to speak of!)

The shorts

The pattern for these is New Look 6413, a pattern designed for knits. I really like them which is slightly a surprise given 80s sports is not really my style.

I followed the pattern pretty straightforwardly except that I ignored cutting direction/direction of greatest stretch and just made the four pieces fit as best I could in the remainders of my fabric. So about half of it stretches the wrong way (vertically). We shall see if this affects how they age/bag out??

My other edit was to add a drawstring to the waistband and I really like how that looks and improves fit options. This was an easy edit, I just added stitching for a drawstring channel over the elastic and needed to add buttonholes; however, my fabric was really, really mad at me for trying to do little buttonholes and the machine kept eating it despite me using tissue paper and having interfaced a good 2” square behind each intended drawstring hole. Thus, I have hand-stitched the eyelets for the drawstring which feels truly wild for such a chill make.

The pants

These weren’t a sewing project but they were essential to the overall look and did involve the tiniest bit of sewing so shoutout.

Noone I know seems to currently own black sweatpants. I had really thought I’d be borrowing some. Instead, I found myself at Winner’s looking through the men’s options because all the women’s ones seemed to be high spandex content. I found these 100% cotton sweats and thought the upper shape was great but they were so lonnng and straight legged. So to make them fit and keep them swaggy, I added giant darts at the outer ankle. Perf.

Pattern: Tee: Mercadito de moldes Remera Shorts: New Look 6413
Fabric and notions: 1m cotton rib knit from Fabcycle, cotton drawstring and 1.25'“ elastic from fabricland, cotton thread, baby’s tshirt cut up and repainted with speedball screenprint ink, painter’s tape
My measurements: b34 (hi and full), w31, h40
Size made: Remera Large, shorts sz 16
Next time: wouldn’t remake the t-shirt, but do want to remember how much I like the drawstring+elastic waistband for athletic shorts!