Hello, Vanessa here from Mom of 5 Trying To Survive. Today I’m going to share with you how I hacked the Half Pipe Tee and added a reverse applique design. I used the Half Pipe Tee and Kids Jogger to create pajamas for my 6 year old daughter. I think they turned out super cute and she loves them!
The original pattern has you sewing two different fabrics together vertically on the front of the shirt. I changed this so they are horizontal and one color fabric is sandwiched between another color.
So I am going to start out with the original front of the shirt paper pattern. First, I am going to cut off and remove a ¼” from the inside edge of the paper pattern.
Then I split the shirt into three pieces. A top, middle, and bottom. I didn’t place my cut lines at any specific measurements. I just eyeballed where I wanted the shirt to be divided and drew a line and then cut on the lines.
After cutting the pattern piece, I made some notes on the pattern to prepare for the cutting of my fabric pieces. I marked where the fold is on each piece. I marked where I needed to add a ¼” of fabric for the seam allowances. You want to add a ¼” of fabric when you are cutting your fabric out on the bottom of the top piece, top and bottom of the middle piece, and at the top of the bottom piece.
Once these are cut out, you can sew them all together like you normally would, with a ¼” seam allowance, and construct the rest of the shirt according to the pattern instructions.
The original pattern had instructions to add a topical applique design, but I chose to do a reverse applique design instead. My daughter really likes cats right now, so I thought it would be fun to use a cat design. I found a cat outline online and printed it out to the size I wanted.
I am going to place this reverse applique on the bottom of my shirt panel which is black, so I’m going to use my patterned fabric as the background color. I cut out my paper cat pattern, and then cut my patterned fabric to be slightly larger.
Then I took my paper cat pattern and placed it onto my black fabric and traced around it with some tailors chalk.
I then pinned the pattern fabric onto the inside of my shirt, right behind the tracing of my cat. When my shirt is turned inside out, and I’m pinning the two pieces together, my pattern fabric is right side facing down. I’m also checking to make sure that I don’t have any pins directly behind the trace lines of the cat, so I don’t sew over those.
With both pieces pinned together, and my shirt right side out, I sewed a straight stitch around the line I created with my tailors chalk. You can use a basic straight stitch, but I wanted the color of my thread to stand out, so I used a straight stretch stitch. This stitch sews forward, backward, and forward again in each stitch to make it stronger. This made the stitch more bold and stand out more.
After I sewed all around the cat, I trimmed all the excess fabric on the inside of the shirt.
Then, with the shirt right side out, I took my scissors and trimmed the black fabric away that is on the inside of the cat, making sure not to cut my pattern fabric that is on the back.
And now it’s done! I love how it turned out.
I also used this reverse applique technique on the Kids Jogger pants on the panels that are on the legs. But make sure to do the reverse applique design while the pants are still open, before the inseams are sewn together. 
(Written by: Vanessa Salatino)
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