How to Upcycle and old Men's Shirt into a baby Sleepsack

When my first little guy was born I had a few sleep sacks, this was great, being a winter baby, the warmth was good once he got too big for the swaddling wraps. …but then summer came and I found, even though it was too hot for it, he wasn’t keen to sleep without it.

So I found an old shirt my brother was getting rid of and turned it into a summer weight sleeping bag.  It just reminded him that it was time for sleeping and not to try climbing around the cot and so on.  Even now my 2 yr old wears one even though he is in a bed, they get pretty savvy at being able walk in sleepsacks! 

I will have to make a new one, using a shirt my husband doesn’t need anymore…well I don’t think he does anyway… So that I can show you the steps in photos.

Step One: - Find shirt, I think a reasonably big sized one works best so that you have enough room to play around with and it doesn’t become a tight fitting piece

Step 2: Cut off collar and sleeves, Cut just below seam…if you wanted to be really fancy and neat and beautiful you could unpick it…but not me, I don’t think it would make enough difference…. if any… to bother with that.

Step 3: Cut down seam and through cuff of one of the sleeves.  This is to sew on to the bottom of the shirt to give it a little more length. 

Step 4:  Sew up the opening in the sleeve where the buttons are.

Step 5: Button up shirt and sew the bottom closed up about 5cm from the bottom, I did the first one up to just above the bottom button which works fine too, but maybe you would get the legs in easier with a little more room.

Sew the end of the sleeve cuff closed (right sides together)

Step 6: Turn shirt inside out and with right sides together join the sides of the sleeve to the bottom of the shirt.  You’ll end up with over lap where the sleeve was shorter than the width of the shirt.   (Or if you wanted it different, you could try cutting along the top of the sleeve (not where the seam is) then the sleeve will be longer that the shirt width, may make it easier…may not?

Step 6a - I forgot about doing this until I tried it on my little guy for the photo session.  While you do need a big shirt to get the length best, the width ends up being quite over the top, so I took the shoulders up a bit and the sides under the armholes in a bit, I am adding this step in now, because this is the best point the it should be done, but my photos are showing how I did it at the end so the seams were already finished and turned back.  Just take a chunk...about 3 cm from shoulder, and the same, 3 or 4cm from the armhole and taper off to the side seam

Step 7 – Sew up top of sleeve to meet the seam at the hem of the shirt, make it blend in as neatly as possible!  It can only come out wonky, but that is all part of the upcycling charm I say!

Step 8 Finishing off – Overlock/zigzag the top of the sleeve part that you just sewed in step 7, and neaten up the neck and the armholes, I think I will just overlock and turn mine under, but you could bind them, maybe cut a strip on a slight bias from the left over sleeve or buy a co-ordination bias binding.  Whatever tickles your fancy!

And I’ll just finish off with a couple more shots of my little one in the finished products, the original mostly though, because I have more cute ones of him in that! J

(The above 2 shots are before I took up the shoulders and took in the armhole, the one on the left is after i did that)

Check out the hand in the breast pocket!!  

I’d love to hear from you, let me know if any of this is confusing or you get lost somewhere….or even better if you had a great success with it!  Post a photo on my Facebook page of your finished product.