Slow Shirt Hack: Cropped Bodice + Short Sleeves

If you know my sewing style, you know how much I love sewing shirts. With small changes, the Slow Shirt has many opportunities to make it into a completely different shirt giving you lots of shirts in just one pattern.I live in a warm location so making the Slow Shirt into one I can wear for more seasons had me thinking about making a short sleeved cropped version.

Shortening the Body

I kept the changes simple as my first experiment, and I wanted to keep the pockets-they’re not the most secure but I appreciate having them. Where else will I keep licorice or dog treats(separately)?

I didn’t change anything about the pockets, and you can see how they interact with the Front in this close-up photo. The bottom corner is still sewn as usual, however you can fill this in if you like.

For the silhouette of my plaid Cropped Shirt, I cut the hem straight across at the lower notch of the side seam. You will need to shorten the Front, Lower Back, Placket Interfacing and Pocket (if you plan on keeping it) Pieces. My Pocket Facing remained unchanged.

You will need

Tools

• Ruler
• pencil
• scissors

Pattern Pieces

• Front
• Back
• Pocket
• Placket Interfacing

How to Shorten the Body

If you plan on keeping the pocket, you can shorten it at the same time you shorten the front, or separately. In the photos, it is lined up to the side seam at the notches. There is a tip in step 2 on how to line the pocket up to the side seam. 

Using the lowest notch along the side seam of the Front and Back, draw a line straight across from notch to Center. Keep your cutting line perpendicular to the Center Back and Center Front.  I like to shorten one, for example the Front, then use it to shorten the Back by lining it up on the side seam to ensure the side seams will still sew to one another. Trim away the shaded red portion of these four pieces. This length includes your hem allowance (5/8”/1.6 cm).

• To shorten the pocket, line it up to the two remaining notches along the side seam. To know where to line your pocket up on the side seam, draw in the ¼”/6 mm seam allowances on the outer perimeter above and below the opening (no need to draw it in on the whole piece, just along the side seam edge). This seam lines up to the notches on the Front.

Want to Crop it More or Less?

You can crop it more or less than I did (I’m about 5’4”).

 As a general guide, if you decide to make it shorter, consider leaving the hand pockets off altogether. Your pocket opening will be a little close to the hem when the shirt gets shorter which will make the sewing a little tricky. And if you would like it longer, it’ll be a little easier to cut it before the hem starts curving- otherwise you’ll need to straighten the side seam.

In the graphic, you’ll see a general sweet spot to crop your Slow Shirt without having to make any alterations to the Front and Lower Back.

Optional Pocket Shaping

In some cases, you might want to make the pocket line up to the lower side seam and hem to simplify the sewing.

If you’d like to do this, it takes one additional step. Once you have cropped the body of the shirt and the Pocket, add some paper to your Pocket pattern and fill in the corner of it by tracing your new Front on to the Pocket.

Shortening the Sleeves

You will need: 

Tools

• Ruler
• pencil
• scissors

Pattern Pieces

• Oversleeve
• Undersleeve

You won’t need the Cuff or its interfacing pieces when you’re ready to cut your shirt.

How to Shorten the Two-Piece Sleeve

This sleeve has a roomy fit, a large hem opening, and it tapers. We have different challenges when we’re shortening a sleeve like this. It’s important to note that you need to keep the hem allowance on the smaller side because it’ll be hard to hem this sleeve if it’s too wide. Or you can make a facing for the hem instead. I have cuffed my sleeves on the Plaid Shirt from time to time and for the most part, they stay cuffed. It is not designed to do this though so they will fall out over time. A cuffed sleeve is engineered to cuff. And we’re flying a little loose here!

To determine the length of the sleeve you would like, the most accurate way to do this is to measure from the center back of your neck, down to where you want the sleeve to end. You can now use the Yoke pattern and the Oversleeve pattern to determine where this length hits on your Oversleeve. Or you can use one of the measurements I provide in the steps for the two lengths you see here on the plaid and floral shirts.

Steps:

• Our first step is to draw a line from the notch along the top of the Oversleeve parallel to the grainline. This notch represents the cap and it lines up to a notch on the Yoke.

• 2. Measure down along this new line (shown in green) 6.5” for the shorter Cropped Sleeve (Floral) or 8.5” for the longer crop sleeve (Plaid). Draw a perpendicular line to this first line across the Oversleeve (shown in red)

• 3. Draw in the Seam Allowances (5/8”/1.6 cm) along all Underarm seams (green dashed line).

4. Line up your Oversleeve to your Undersleeve stacking the seamline as if it’s sewn. The little red arrow is pointing to where these seams sew together. Look at that nice smooth curve along the top- we know we lined it up nicely.

 Mark on the Undersleeve where the new horizontal line(red line) meets the Undersleeve (shown as a short blue line). TIP: You’ll know which side of the pattern to line up to the other one by looking at the notches along the seam. Double notches go to double notches, single to single.

5. Repeat for your other underarm seam.

6. On your Undersleeve, draw a line between these two points. It will not be perpendicular to the grainline- and that is correct.

7. Trim below this new line.

8. It will look like this. Yours may be longer or shorter.

9. All that is left is to add our hem allowance. If you included it in your overall sleeve length, all you need to do is step c to find the hem shape along the underarm seams.

a. Tape Paper behind your two sleeve patterns along the newly cut edge and add your preferred hem allowance. The Slow Shirt uses 5/8”/1.6 for it’s body hem allowance. It’ll be easiest if you don’t add more than 1”/2.54 cm and it finishes less than about ½”/1.2 cm.

b. Trim the paper excess long the hem cutline.

c. Fold the paper up along your hemline (the finished hemline, not the cutline for the hem allowance). And trim the paper along each underarm seam.

Your Slow Shirt Sleeve is now Cropped!

Sewing the Cropped Slow Shirt

Body and Pocket

Pocket: In step 4g, you’ll find that you won’t have to turn under as much of the pocket perimeter and it’ll be in two sections if you kept the original pocket shape: One short section under the pocket opening and a longer section that starts above the pocket opening. Both will end at the hem. Your pocket will have a raw edge that lines up to the hem once the pocket is completely sewn to the Front. We’ll take care of that raw edge at the hemming step.

Side Seam and Hem

In Step 8a, you will still press your seam along the side seam in the same way but you will not be able to do so on the hem. Stop at the bottom of the side seam. 8b. Sew your side seam from armhole to hem. 8c. Use the same steps for the side seam. Your hem will be sewn separately. When you hem the shirt, you’ll hold the pocket and Front layer together as one and hem it together to the inside. You can still use the same allowances and steps to sew the hem, but it doesn’t seamlessly tie into the side seam. Press your hem ¼”/6 mm and again 3/8”/1 cm along the bottom edge. Edgestitch.

Sleeve

• You will only need step 9k, 9l, and 9m to assemble your Sleeve. Use these steps on BOTH Underarm seams of your sleeve.
• Hem the Sleeve. Depending upon the allowance you gave yourself, first press the sleeve a little less than half the amount of your hem allowance to the wrong side. Next press it along the hemline the remaining hem allowance. Edgestitch.
• Continue to Step 10 of the Slow Shirt instructions.