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Hello!
Welcome to another episode of Make Thrift Buy, the show where YOU send in cute, weird,
expensive, mass-produced E-T-C clothes that you’ve found on the internet and then I
try my best to recreate them.
Today’s item suggetion comes from ashlyn, who wanted to see me recreate this cute off-the-shoulder
crop top with ties, originally sold by topshop for $35.
Now ashlyn wanted me to recreate it because it's totally sold out, and they can't find
it anywhere else.
It's also a fairly simple looking piece.
So I thought it was a perfect candidate to try and make for ourselves.
So I suspect that this tutorial is going to be quite beginner-friendly, so if you’re
new to the wonderful world of sewing, first, welcome and secondly, you should definitely
give this one a go!
Okay, so, let’s begin!
So first things first.
I’m making this from scratch, so I had to choose the fabric that I wanted to use.
I decided on this vintage bolt of cotton fabric, so it’s a non-stretchy woven fabric.
I think it has quite a 70s vibe to it.
So the pieces I needed to cut out of my fabric are just 4 rectangles.
Because this project is only made of 4 rectangles it’s easy to cut them out, and it also creates
minimal fabric waste!
Piece number 1 is a large, long rectangle.
I determined the width of the rectangle by measuring around my shoulders and my bust.
I took the largest of these measurements, which was my shoulder measurement, and then
I add another 5 inches to this.
For example, the measurement around my shoulders was 40 inches, and I added 5 to get to 45.
The height of the rectangle is determined by measuring the length that I wanted the
top to be.
I measured from the middle of my chest to slightly above my natural waistline, and then
I added 2 inches.
So, I wanted my top to be 9 inches tall.
Plus 2 is 11.
This rectangle will make up the back and front of the “bodice” of the crop top.
Piece number 2 and 3 are two identical-shaped sleeves.
To get the width of this rectangle, I measured around the top part of my arm.
Then you will want to add 5 to 10 inches, depending on how “puffy” you want the
sleeve to be.
The bigger the number, the more puffy it’ll be.
So I added 7 inches to my measurement – for some moderate puff.
So, for example my arm measurement is 11 inches, add 7 and I got 18.
The height of these rectangles is determined by the desired sleeve length, plus 2 inches.
I wanted my sleeves to be 6 inches long, so plus 2 is 8.
So then I cut out 2 of these rectangles, and these are the sleeves.
The 4th rectangle is going to be the tie at the front of the top.
I made mine 1.5 inches by 30 inches long.
And I’m going to set that piece aside for later.
Okay, so now I’m going back to my 1st lonnnnng rectangle piece.
I folded it in half like this to find the mid-point, and then I cut a slit at the mid-point,
and then I tore the fabric straight down the middle at its grainline.
This gave me two identical rectangles.
Then, for just one of these rectangles, I also tore it in half, like this.
This will give me one long BACK piece and two FRONT pieces for my top.
Then I put these aside for later.
Moving onto rectangles 2 and 3, these are the SLEEVES.
But I needed to alter them slightly before I added them to the top.
To do this, I folded both sleeves in half like this, making sure to match up the edges
EXACTLY, and then put one on top of the other like this.
I made SUPER sure that all the edges were exactly lined up, then I made a mark 1 inch
away from the corner at the bottom, and 3 inches away from the corner at the side here.
And I joined those two marks up into a little right-angled triangle like this.
Then, I cut through all 4 layers of fabric at once – I used my rotary cutter, but you
can use whatever cutting implement you like!
So, unfolded, each sleeve now looks like this.
The two sleeves should still be identical in shape.
Now, this is an optional step, that’ll just make the insides of the garment look nice
when it’s finished and also prevent fraying of the fabric as well.
I used my overlocker to serge all the raw edges of fabric from rectangles 1, 2 and 3.
And this is what an overlocker AKA serger looks like, it’s slightly different from
a normal sewing machine and one of its functions is giving nice finished edges on fabric like
this.
But if you don’t have an overlocker there’s a cheaper hack.
Grab yourself some pinking shears – they are scissors with a zig zag edge like this
– and when you’re cutting out your fabrics, use these instead of normal scissors or the
tearing method.
Pinking shears help prevent fraying as well!
You can also do a zig-zag stitch around the edges, for a kind of fake serged look.
Again, this step is optional but it WILL make your piece last longer and look a little bit
better.
So now it’s time to attach the sleeves to the bodice pieces.
I placed the biggest rectangle, the back piece, right sides up and then I placed one of the
sleeves down on top of it, right sides down, so that these edges are matching up, and the
fabrics are right-sides together.
Then I grabbed the other sleeve, and I did the same thing – I placed it right-sides
down along the other edge.
Next, I’m going to sew the sleeves on like this.
Now I wanted to show you a little bit more close up.
So the stitches need to go right down to this point here, and try to make them the same
on each side, because it’ll end up a lot neater later on the more identical you do
it.
Okay so with the sleeves sewn to the back piece, and unfolded, it looks like this.
Then I grabbed my two smaller FRONT pieces.
And, I put one front piece on top of the sleeve, right-sides together, and matched up the edges.
Now, it was easier to see what I was doing if I flipped it around first, so that's what
I'm doing on the other sleeve, so it basically looks the same as when I sewed the sleeves
to the back piece.
Again, I sewed both sleeves to both of the front pieces like this.
And now I have this one really long, weird-looking piece of sewn together fabric.
But here’s where the magic happens:
I folded this long piece of sewn-together fabric in half, right-sides together, carefully
matching up the seams and the sleeves and matching up the front pieces in the middle
here – and look at that – that’s kind looking like an off the shoulder top!
Next, I pinned the front and the back pieces together, taking extra care around the armhole,
and I’m going to sew a straight stitch up the sides of the top to THIS point, where
the arm stitches start from before, and then I'm going to sew down the sleeve like this.
Now, I actually think this is creating an inset seam(?) - somebody please correct me
in the comments if not – anyway, these seams are a little bit difficult to do and require
a lot of precision, as you’re basically joining up 4 corners together.
So don’t be worried if you don’t get it perfect.
I definitely didn’t get it perfect here and I still have a lot of practise with these
kind of seams, but you know, this is fine.
Your top will still function even if your seam isn’t perfect, and because of the freeform
and ruffly nature of this top, you won't notice it at all once you're finished.
Anyway, after doing that for BOTH sides and sleeves of the top, I re-folded the top so
that the 2 front pieces were on top of each other right-sides-together, with the edges
matching up.
Now these are the edges that were in the middle of the top before.
I pinned the two pieces of fabric together, and next I’m going to sew them together
like this.
But I am ONLY sewing up to here – I’m leaving the top 4 inches left un-sewn.
This is to create that little hole in the top, where the ties will sit in front.
Okay so on those 4 inches that I left un-sewn, on both sides I folded the fabric in like
this and I sewed over the top, making a little hem.
So that’s how I constructed the top!
And now it’s time to make casings, add elastic, and create those little ruffles and make it
fit!
I will need 4 elastic pieces, one for the waistline, 2 for the armholes and one for
around the shoulders.
So, this is the elastic I’m using, it’s about half an inch wide.
First I wrapped the elastic around the point just above my natural waistline, making sure
not to pull it too tightly, just so it’s comfortable, and I cut it to this length.
I did the same around my arms, and cut two of these, and then around my shoulders like
this, cut it to length as well.
To apply the elastic to the armholes and the waist, I followed the same method.
With the top inside-out, I lined up my elastic with the bottom of the arm, so I knew how
wide the casing needed to be.
I wanted the casing a little wider than the elastic.
I then flipped the fabric like this, all the way around the bottom of the armhole.
And the next thing I’m going to do is to use a straight stitch to sew all the way around
like THIS, leaving room between the stitches and the edge, to make a casing for the elastic.
Oh, and by the way, I pinned it first to keep the fabrics in place.
I'm always pinning before I sew - pinning is important.
Anyway then I sewed ALMOST all the way around the sleeve, leaving a gap of 2 inches, to
put the elastic in later.
After both sleeves were done, I did the same thing for the bottom of the crop top:
I flipped the fabric up, pinned it on all the way around, and then sewed, ALMOST all
the way around the top, except for 2 inches to leave a gap for the elastic, to make that
casing.
Now, I kept forgetting to leave that small gap, where the elastic will go in later, so
here’s a little song that I started singing while sewing so that I would remember and
hopefully you, watching the tutorial, will remember as well.
[singing, badly] Don’t forget to leave a gap, don’t forget to leave a gap, when you’re
sewing on your casing!
YEAH.
Make THAT into a hit single.
Anyway, I’m stressing this because yeah - I kept forgetting when I was making my earlier
versions and it was really annoying to have to cut all stitches out again.
So here’s the approximate size you want your gap to be.
Basically it just needs to be wide enough to fit your elastic through it.
Now, the casing around the shoulders is a little bit different – I folded down the
edges down just like for the arms and then bottom, but I DON’T need to leave a gap
this time because of the slit in the front of the top.
That already creates a gap for me to put my elastic through.
So, I sewed this casing on ALL the way around, like this.
And this is what the top looks like with all the casings now sewn.
Now it's time to add the elastic!
I stuck a safety pin through one end of one of the arm elastics, and then I pushed the
elastic through the gap in the casing, and then I used the safety pin to pull the elastic
through all the way until it came back out the other end.
You can put a safety pin in the other end of the elastic if you’re worried about losing
it, but if you like to live on the wild side like me, just make sure the other end of the
elastic doesn’t go disappearing into your casing.
When I pulled the elastic out the other end, I removed the safety pin, and now the elastic
is in a loop, I put the ends together like this and sewed over the top of them to connect
them together.
And then, I sewed the small gap in the casing closed.
And I repeated this for the other sleeve and the bottom waist casing.
Now around the shoulders is a little bit different again, because I’m going to be adding ties.
So remember that really long, skinny piece of fabric from way back in the beginning?
Rectangle 4?
I took that piece and I laid it flat on my ironing board, then I folded the edges into
the middle like this, and ironed it down in place, all the way along the strip of fabric.
THEN, I folded it in half, length-ways, like this, and I sewed down THIS edge.
Now you don't need to worry about overlocking or using pinking shears on these edges because
the raw edges will be inside the tube.
I finished off the raw ends by clipping them with my pinking shears (you could also serge
them), and then folding the ends up about half an inch and then sewing over the top
like this.
Then I cut the tie exactly in half, by cutting it in the middle.
And this gives me two ties.
Then, remember that I cut a piece of elastic for around the shoulders?
Okay, I grabbed that.
And on each end of this piece of elastic, I put one of the ties on top, with the unfinished
end matching up with the elastic, with about 1 inch of overlap, and then I sewed them together
like THIS.
With that done on both sides, this is what my shoulder elastic now looks like.
I put a safety pin in one end of this long piece, and then I threaded it all the way
through the casing around the shoulders of the top.
I pulled the elastic through so that the ends of the fabric ties were just outside the casing.
Then I pushed them back through, just a little bit, inside the casing so that the end of
the elastic part sits *just* inside the tube.
I stuck safety pins through both to keep the elastic in place, then I sewed the elastic
and ties into the top like THIS.
And that’s me done!
So, how does it look?
How did I go?
[music plays]
This turned out suuuper cute!
So – make, thrift or buy?
This project is a:
[scissor snipping sound effect]
You can definitely make this for yourself!
And seriously, I know that I made the tutorial quite long but that’s because I wanted to
break it down into simple steps that a total beginner could hopefully understand, because
I think this project is perfect for beginners who are just learning how the ins and outs
of sewing their own clothes.
You’re only working with rectangles, you don’t need to take very exact measurements,
and you’re working with woven fabric so you can even use something like thrifted bedsheets,
for example, as a cheap option for fabric, and also you can get away with ONLY using
straight stitches for this entire project as well.
So if you’re either used to sewing and you want an easy to do project, or if you’re
new to sewing and you want something you can actually understand and complete, then give
this a go!
And also don’t be worried if it doesn’t turn out perfectly the first time – these
are all the tops I made trying to get this right:
[obnoxious fast-tempo chiptune music]
So, you know, if at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try.. and try... and try - again!
I believe in you!
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