Hello all my sewing friends! I’m so excited to share this pattern mash with you today! I love the look of dress shirts on little baby boys, but dress shirts are constantly riding up on babies. Enter. . . the dress shirt bodysuit! These are my absolute favorite type of dress shirts for my little guy. So, I am thrilled that Sunflower Seams has two patterns that mash together easily to create the perfect dress shirt bodysuit!
Let’s get right to it by prepping your pattern pieces and cutting out your fabric.
Grade your pattern pieces as necessary for your child’s measurements.
Take the Baby Alder main front and main back pieces. Draw a vertical line 1 inch from the fold line on the back piece. (this will account for the box pleat).
Draw a vertical line 1 ⅜ inch from the center line of the front piece. (This will account for the placket).
Fold the front piece back on the line you just drew. You do not want to include this extra width in your pattern, because you will be using the Olive placket construction method. Lay your Olive front piece on top of your Alder front piece aligning the straight edge.
Lay your Olive back piece on top of your Alder back piece aligning the fold line of the Olive piece with the vertical line drawn on the Alder piece.
Cut out your fabric. You will fold the Olive piece down so that you end up cutting out the neckline and armscye of Alder and the side seam and crotch of Olive.
For the back piece, you want to make sure you have the extra width for the box pleat. However, you don’t want your crotch placket to be wider than the Olive pattern piece. Therefore, after you cut out the side seam, move your Olive pattern piece so that the fold line is aligned with the Alder fold line. Cut your fabric in a gentle curve from the side seam to the Olive crotch placket.
Next you need to lengthen the placket. Draw a vertical line across the pattern at the hip. Measure one inch above your hip line and make a new placket mark. Now measure how much longer your placket needs to be. My new placket mark was 4 ¾ inch lower than the mark on the pattern, so I cut my placket piece 4 ¾ inch longer than the dimensions in the cut chart for the Olive placket.
Now cut out all of the remaining Olive and Alder pieces. (Note: you do not need to cut out any Olive lining pieces)
Finally, you get to sew up your beautiful Olive/Alder!
Follow steps 1-13 of Alder first.
Then go over to Olive and follow steps 10-18.
Next, finish the Alder tutorial with steps 14, and 18-47.
Finally, finish with Olive steps 55-59.
And you’re done!
One of my favorite ways to style these dress shirts is with suspenders and a bowtie!
If you liked this tutorial, make sure you come back next week for a quick tutorial on making Thistle into a baby safe break-away tie to pair with your Olive/Alder mashes!
Happy Sewing!
-Tamar