Hey. Welcome to another episode of get thready with me. Today, I’m going to show you all
how to make a high-neck sleeveless crop top. This style of shirt is a really nice, basic,
yet flattering piece to own, and they go with pretty much – anything.
So let’s go!
Okay, so the first thing I need to do is to make the pattern, and to do this I pick out
a t-shirt that fits me well, is fairly tight-fitting and is made out of stretchy fabric. You can
pretty much use any tight-fitting t-shirt – but the most important thing is that the
t-shirt needs to have a high back of the neck.
So to make the pattern, I first turn this t-shirt inside out. It needs to lie with the
back of the shirt (which is usually where the tag is) facing up.
First I make a mark 2 inches away from the neckline, on both sides, on the top of this seam.
Then, I make a mark directly underneath each armhole seam.
Then I need to work out what width the bust
measurement needs to be. So I took my bust measurement.
Then, I took 2 inches off this measurement. And then I divided this by 2.
This gives me 17 inches. So, I make two marks at the same height as
the armholes, just bringing them in so that this is 17 inches across.
Now I’m going to join up these two marks with a curve.
Now you can either use one of these French curve rulers if you have one, or you can just
eyeball it. With the curve, you want to kind of follow the shape of the curve of the armhole
on the t-shirt that’s already there, but bringing the curve in at the top so that it
meets up with your other mark.
The next step is to decide how long you want the shirt to be. I wanted my top to be around
17 and a half inches long. I took off an inch to allow for the turtle neck, but then added
it back on for the hem allowance at the bottom of the shirt. So, I made a mark 17 and a half
inches below the centre of the t-shirt’s neckline.
The bottom of the crop top is going to sit pretty much at your waistline. So, I took
my waist measurement and then again, I minus 2 inches, and then I divided this measurement
by 2.
So, for me, I got 14 inches. So I’m going to make this bottom line 14 inches long, by
connecting up these 3 marks in a straight line.
And then lastly I need to connect up these two lines.
And this is what my basic top pattern is going to look like.
Now I need to transfer this pattern onto some paper.
I fold the shirt exactly in half and I put a piece of paper inside, matching up the edges
of the paper with the fold.
Then, using some pins, I press through the shirt, following the chalk lines, all the
way around. This creates small holes on the paper below.
Then, all I need to do is simply connect these small holes together just like a join-the-dot picture.
And I cut this out. See! They're the same size! Woo hoo!
Okay, so this is the only pattern piece that I'm going to need, and it’s going to be
used for both the front and the back of the shirt.
Now that's done, on to fabrics. The fabric that I’m making my shirt out of is a very
stretchy, 2-way stretch ribbed jersey, but you can pretty much use any stretchy jersey fabric.
To copy my pattern onto the fabric, I fold the fabric in half, and then I place the pattern
piece on top, with this edge on the fold.
Now because I don’t trust myself to cut it out accurately while it’s just on top
like that, I pin it on, trace around it, then remove the pattern piece, put pins in to hold
the two layers in place, and then I cut around the traced lines.
And when I unfold it, I have this! Now I simply need to do this once more, so
that I'll have 2 pieces.
Now that I have 2 identical pieces, I sandwich them together,
and then I sew the two pieces together at the sides and at the shoulders.
And it’s also a good idea to pin pin pin when you’re working with stretchy fabric.
To sew the front and back pieces together, I am using a zig zag stitch. Some extra tips
to make your life easier is to also use a thread that’s very similar to the colour
of your fabric, and to use a ball-point jersey needle, instead of a regular sewing machine needle.
Once these two pieces are sewn together, I turn the top inside out so that the seams
are on the inside.
And it’s a good idea to try it on at this stage, to make sure that it fits alright,
and that you can get your head through the neckhole, etc.
Now I’m going to make the "cuff" for the neck. I measure the circumference of the neck
hole, which is 10 inches. I then take HALF an inch off that measurement,
and so I cut out a strip which is only 9 and a half inches long.
It’s also 3 inches wide, but if you want more of a turtle neck, you can increase this,
or if you LESS of a turtle neck then decrease this and make the strip thinner.
Anyway, after cutting this rectangle out I fold it in half like this, and then I sew
down here, with a half inch seam allowance.
Then, I turn the piece inside-out so that the seam is on the inside, and then fold it
in half length-ways like this, to give myself this kind of cuff… thing.
Then, I place 4 pins equally around the neck hole. So, one pin on each shoulder seam, and
one in the centre front and one in the centre back. I do the same thing on the neck cuff,
with 4 evenly-spaced pins. I’m going to match these pins up when I
sew the two pieces together.
To sew the cuff on, I’m first removing this doobly-doo from my machine so that the cuff
will fit over the top.
Then, I slide the neck cuff on, with the raw edges facing this way, and the neckline of
the shirt goes underneath it. So, the cuff is going to be sewn onto the right side of
the shirt.
Once I match up the raw edges, I sew the neck cuff onto the shirt! I do this by using a
zig-zag stitch, and at the same time stretching the fabric underneath so each set of pins
basically match up.
When I get to the next set of pins, I remove them, and then I do the same thing – I stitch
along the edge, stretching the fabrics so that the next set of pins line up.
And I do this all around the neckhole until I reach the point where I started from.
And – that's the neckline done!
For the armholes, I’m basically going to do the exact same thing, however the strips
are going to be a little bit thinner. I measure the armhole circumference (which
for me, is 15 inches), then this time I subtract 1 whole inch from this measurement. So,
I cut out a strip that’s 14 inches long and 1.5 inches wide.
Then I do the exact same thing that I did for the neck. I fold this strip in half, sew
here, turn it around, fold it in half lengthways to get a cuff, quarter it with pins, quarter
the armhole evenly with pins, and I sew them together, raw edges matching, with the cuff
on the right side of the shirt. And again, I stretch the fabric while I sew so that each
set of pins matches up with each other.
Now the last thing that I need to do is to hem the bottom of the shirt.
So, I turn the shirt inside out, and then I fold the bottom up about inch, and then
sew across it. Now I recently got myself this special sewing
foot called a “walking foot”. This thing makes sewing with stretchy fabrics A DREAM.
Basically, it helps feed all the fabric through evenly to stop the hem from ruffling when
you sew it. If you don’t own a walking foot, however, I recommend sewing the hem using
a piece of paper underneath, just like I did in this video here.
Here’s a close up of the walking foot in action.
And – look at my nice, flat hem!
So, I finished the top - but then I tried it on a decided that the armholes were slightly
too tight. So I actually wanted to try and make the top again, but modify the pattern
slightly to make the armholes larger. So, back to my pattern - all I simply did
was to make my armhole a little bit larger by extending this curve.
And, I tried again, this time using the same fabric but in black. And I’m not going to
film the whole thing again because all the steps I used are exactly the same as before!
SO – that’s it!
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So, yeah, that's it. That was actually surprisingly easy to do. The second top that I made - so,
this one - actually only took me about an hour to make, and that was because I wasn't
filming, I was sewing at my normal sewing speed. So, yeah, you can pretty much whip
up a bunch of these in all different colours in no time. And while it's a really nice basic
shirt to own that'll go with a lot of things, you can also do some more interesting things
with it, with say T-shirt transfers, or fabric paints, or embroidery, or using different
fabrics for the cuffs and the collar, to make some really interesting tops!
And - I'll see you all for my next video. Bye!
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