Another 90 Min Shirt (and some tips on including t-shirt graphics)

I love Dana's 90 Min Shirts.  Have you tried them yet?  You probably have because they are great.  So versatile.  So easy.  And such a fun, comfy kid shirt.  Olivia loves them.  Or at least she better because I sure love them.

The adult-size (more like teen-size) Elmo shirt this one was made from was one I had been hanging on to since high school.  Well, I wore it in high school an I had been hanging on to it ever since.  I had always kind of envisioned making a pillow out of it, but when I spotted it in my stash yesterday I finally decided to make it into a shirt for Olivia instead.  

I don't really have a lot of love in my heart for clothing plastered with licenced characters, but I love the classic, iconic look of Elmo and I love the color palate on this t-shirt.  Also, Olivia has a little friend who loves Elmo and now she kind of does too.  So what do you expect?  Of course I wanted to make her an Elmo shirt.

One of the problems I ran into with this shirt, though, was the fact that the Elmo graphic was so high up on the original shirt that I couldn't use the original bottom hem and not cut off Elmo's face.  I think this is a pretty common problem with turning adult-sized graphic tees into kid tees, so here's quick run-down of how I worked around it.

• Start by carefully cutting off the original ribbed knit neckline.  I don't pick out all that serging, I just cut above the original seam line.
• Position front pattern piece over the t-shirt so the graphic is where I want it to end up on the finished kid shirt.
• Cut the back piece out lining it up with the bottom hem, like normal.
• Use the original sleeves, like normal.
• Below where I cut out the front piece, I cut a couple 1" strips* to use for binding the neckline (like in Dana's tutorial).  This is also what I'll use to bind the bottom edge on the front piece.  (*Depending on the size of the t-shirt you're working with, you could make wider strips.  I just went with 1" strips because this t-shirt was on the smaller side to begin with.)
• Before sewing front and back together, I sew one of my 1" strips (ironed in half and sandwiched over the edge) onto the bottom edge of the front piece.
• I use the original ribbed knit neckline piece on the neckline edge of the BACK and the extra 1" strip of t-shirt on the neckline edge of the FRONT.  (Obviously this is just my own personal preference, but since a lot more of the back neckline is shown, I prefer to have that be the nicer looking/more contrasting.)
• Sew the side seams and sleeves on as usual.

Olivia was super excited about the Elmo shirt when I finished it yesterday.  I think she'll be wearing it today. :)