How to sew a raglan shirt including a free pattern for kids

Hey y’all, today’s tutorial is how to sew a raglan shirt. I made these long sleeved raglan t-shirts as part of my annual tradition of sewing pajamas for my kids and their cousins. It’s a labor of love every year, but worth it to look back on how they’ve grown. You can see previous years here, here, here and here.

Want to make your own? This week I’m showing how to make the top, and next week I’ll post a video for the bottoms. But below is the list of supplies you’ll need for a whole set.
- 1 1/2 yards of knit fabric. Because this is so fitted, you want to make sure that the fabric has 4 way stretch; this is part of why the Riley Blake knits are perfect since they have 4 way stretch and 5% spandex.
- 1/4 yard of rib knit fabric for the cuffs and neckband – fabric should have at least 80% stretch for the neckline (that means you can stretch a 10 inch piece to 18 inches). You could use the same fabric as the body IF it has good stretch and recovery.
- 19 inches of 1 inch wide elastic
- The pattern (see below)
The free pattern is in size 4T. If you need to make the pattern bigger or smaller, check out this post. To get it, click your preferred option below to get the free pattern only as a newsletter subscriber, or you can buy the full digital pattern in sizes 18M through 8 using the button below.
Please note that all my free patterns are licensed for personal use only (no selling items made from this unless you purchase it) and by downloading you are agreeing to this license.
To sew this up, check out the video below. You can also watch on YouTube here if it won’t load below for some reason. If you prefer written instructions, these are the same pajamas I made in this post.
Need more help sewing the neckband? Check out this post.

Make sure to come back next week to watch the video for how I sewed up the matching pants for this cutie!

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