Levi's shirt gusset

I try to keep a lightweight cardigan or overshirt in the car during the summer for those times when we're already out (running errands, going to doctor appointments, etc.) and we spontaneously decide to stop someplace to eat. Most restaurants keep their summertime air conditioning set to what feels like sub-zero, and I've reached the age where I get uncomfortable when I'm cold or sitting in a draft, so putting on an extra layer goes a long way toward keeping me content on those occasions.

We recently had a day where we were out and about, and we decided it was a good opportunity for us to eat out before heading home, except I didn't have a cardigan with me to put on in the restaurant. So, before heading to eat, we stopped at a shop and bought me this lovely lightweight denim/chambray Levi's shirt to slip on over the t-shirt I was wearing.

The shirt fit me well enough off the rack (I could button it down the front, etc.), and it kept me comfortable at the restaurant, but it was a snug fit, and I could tell that I would like the shirt even more if I added gussets for some extra ease. 

So, a few days later, I searched online and found some lovely light blue floral-print chambray fabric. I ordered 1.5 meters, which was way more yardage than I needed for the gussets, but I figured that I would eventually find a use for the remaining fabric. 😂

Even though the floral fabric isn't stretch chambray (which the description says), it's exactly the color and print that I envisioned using for the gusset panels on my Levi's shirt, so I'm happy with it. (The shirt doesn't stretch, either, so it's actually better that floral fabric isn't stretchy.)

Shirt and fabric before cutting:

First, I measured the length of the side seams (from hem to cuff) to know how long the gusset strips would need to be. My shirt measured about 29 inches from hem to cuff, so I cut my gusset strips from the floral fabric about 32 inches long (to give myself plenty of length for seam allowances) by 7 inches wide.

Before cutting the shirt open along the side seams, I had to remove the cuffs. This step made me a bit nervous, because I hadn't sewn anything with nice cuffs like this before.

I used my seam ripper and worked slowly and carefully until the cuffs came free from the sleeves. I set the cuffs aside to be reattached later.

Whew!! 😅

After the cuffs were removed, I took a couple of pins and pinned the tabs (the ones that secure the sleeves when they're rolled up) out of the way inside the sleeves, to keep them safe during the shirt cutting and gusset sewing.

Then it was time to cut the shirt open along the side seams. Using my sharpest scissors, and again working slowly and carefully, I cut as close as I could on either side of the bulky side seams, removing and discarding the strips from the old seams.

The next step was to zigzag stitch along all the raw edges of the shirt and the gusset strips, to minimize fraying later.

Now it was time to start sewing the gusset strips together with the shirt.

I finger-pressed about a 3/8-inch hem along one short edge of each gusset strip and then stitched across that hem to secure it. Then I put one side of the shirt and one of the gusset strips together with right sides facing, carefully lining up the bottom edge of the shirt with the bottom (hemmed) edge of the gusset strip, then sewed the pieces together from hem to cuff using a 3/8-inch seam. I repeated that process for the other three long seams. Then I pressed the seam allowance toward the gussets and topstitched over the seam allowances to secure them.

With all that work done, the only thing left to do was to reattach the cuffs. But, of course, the sleeves were now about 6 inches bigger around than they used to be, with the added gussets. So to get the sleeves to fit the original cuffs, I stitched two rows of basting stitches in the seam allowance of the ends of the sleeves and used the basting to gather the cuffs to a size that would fit in the cuffs. I pinned the inside edge of each cuff to the corresponding sleeve and stitched along that inside edge to secure the cuff to the sleeve. Then I enclosed the raw edge of each sleeve by positioning the outside edge of the cuff in place and topstitching to finish.

Hoodie gusset

My favorite alumni hoodie sweatshirt was just a tad too tight to be comfortable, so I did a lot of looking online for ideas on how to make it fit with more positive ease.

After watching many, many sewing video tutorials about adding a gusset, I felt confident enough to attempt it on my hoodie. The risk was that this line of hoodies was a one-time purchase done by my alumni association, so if I messed this one up, I wouldn't be able to buy another one just like it again. So that was scary, because I like my hoodie.

Once I had the process set in my mind, the next step was to find the right fabric. From the beginning, I knew that I wanted a nice windowpane plaid flannel fabric that incorporated the green from my hoodie with some blue and gold and white. I found a fabric I liked on eBay and bought 1/2 yard, which would give me just enough to add a wide strip of gusset to each side of the hoodie.

I started deconstructing the hoodie by carefully picking out the stitches holding the cuffs to the ends of the sleeves, so I could reattach the cuffs after adding the gussets. I envisioned the gussets tapering gradually from the underarm area to the wrist, where there would be very little gusset width left showing, because I didn't need to add much width to the sleeves. Also, that way, I could reattach the cuffs without having changed the width of the ends of the sleeves by much.

After removing the cuffs, the next step was cutting open the sides. (((Yikes)))

Because my hoodie had no side seams originally, the scariest part of this entire project was the actual cutting of the sides.

To make my side cuts as straight as possible, I laid the hoodie out flat on my worktable and smoothed it out until it was very even and straight. Using my sewing clips, I clipped along the fold to help hold it in place so it wouldn't shift as I was marking my line. Then I took my tailors chalk and slowly and carefully started to sketch a cutting line down each side from the point of the underarm where the sleeve's inner seam ended, bit by bit moving down the side along the fold in between the clips. After each side had a good chalk line drawn, I removed the clips and picked up my fabric scissors and took a couple of DEEP breaths.

Then I slowly and carefully cut open each side, all the way down to the end of the sleeve (cutting open the sleeves was easier, because the sleeves had seams to follow to guide my cuts).

Cutting the hoodie was REALLY scary, as I've already said. But it worked!

The next step was to prepare my flannel fabric for cutting. I measured how long each gusset piece would need to be to extend from the end of the sleeve, up the arm, and down the side to beyond the hem, leaving enough excess fabric to turn under as a hem. (I didn't remove the cuff from around the waist of the hoodie before cutting the sides; I cut through each side of that cuff along with each side.)

I wanted a 3.5-4-inch wide gusset showing on each side after sewing the pieces together. I also wanted to use flat-felled seams where I added the gussets, so the finish would be clean on both the right side and the wrong side of the hoodie, so before cutting, I had to include a sufficient amount of seam allowance to accommodate those.

I had never sewn flat-felled seams before, so I had to watch a few video tutorials for how to do that. (And then I watched them again before starting each seam - once for each of the four seams!) I found this video tutorial by Notches Sewing to be the most helpful.

Having gussets that taper down to almost nothing at the wrists made executing the flat-felled seams more difficult, but I just went slowly, and it worked out.

It took several days to finish all the sewing of the side seams, because I spent a LOT of time carefully pinning and watching the video over and over to make extra sure that I was setting myself up to do it right, and then being extra careful during the actual sewing.

Once the sides were sewn together, it was fairly straightforward to pin the cuffs back onto the ends of the sleeves and then sew them on.

And then, just like that, it was done!

I'm really pleased with how well this project turned out. My husband said it looks like the hoodie was made this way by the manufacturer, which was high praise. It turned out so well, in fact, that I think now I should buy a few more yards of the same plaid fabric and make a pair of lounge pants to coordinate with my super-cool hoodie. (I would follow this video tutorial by Sachi's Studio for making the pants!)

HoB Mitts free pattern

I've been itching to make something using Lion Brand's Cotton-Ease yarn ... but it has been nearly impossible to find it. I guess all the yarn stores in my area just don't carry it. Yeah, I know, that doesn't make sense to me, either.

But I finally found some in stock at JoAnn. I'm not too sure about the color (Taupe), but I bought what I hope is enough to make a shawl.

In the meantime, I decided to experiment with a pair of fingerless mitts. This HoB Mitts pattern by Mechee Meador is very nice - quick and easy.

I used a provisional cast-on of 35 stitches so I could add an i-cord edging to the finger opening and also graft the side seam after working the thumb gusset. The other thing I did differently was to work the entire mitt in garter stitch, omitting the stockinette panel.