(Sigh) Yep. I'm actually doing this.
[Make Thrift Buy Intro Music]
Hey! Welcome to Make Thrift Buy, the show where you send in suggestions of clothes that you've
seen on the Internet and then I try my best to recreate them.
So a LOT of you have sent me messages in the past few weeks asking me to recreate the "Virgin
Killing Sweater". Appppparently this sweater recently blew up on Twitter in Japan, and
later it was also picked up by Western major media outlets in their monthly "isn't Japan
so craaaazy" stories, although I am pretty sure it's actually manufactured and sold in
a Chinese store called Seventy Three.
It's also apparently received the name "virgin killer" from a Japanese person on Twitter
because it's so erotic....that it kills...virgins? Look everything about this is a little bit
iffy; I'm just here to sew.
Oh yeah. Important thing to note about this sweater: It's supposed to be so low cut at
the back that it shows off "butt cleavage". Now I didn't know butt cleavage was a thing
until today. And in attempting to keep this video PG I'm not going to show you the photos
of people wearing it where you can see their butt cleavage, nor will I be showing my own
butt cleavage if I do make it successfully, but if you want to see this worn on actual
human beings (or a bunch of anime girls or my little pony characters, which, I pre-warn
you, you will not be able to unsee) there's a Not Safe For Work page on knowyourmeme.com
all about this sweater with about 300 pictures.
Anyway, let's try and recreate this.
Well, I started out by finding a suitable sweater at the thrift store. This one was
$15 and it's a men’s size large. Most importantly, it has a turtle neck, and it's also quite
long on me – it ends about where my shorts end so it’s the perfect length for this
DIY.
Anyway, off with the arms! We sure won’t be needing those!
Oh yeah, guys, I should just stop here, I’ve created such a sexy look already.
Anyway next I wanted to make it fit more snugly, so it’s time to take in the sides.
I pinched the material at the sides until it was more snug on my body, estimating how
much I’d need to take it in by.
Then I turned the sweater inside out, and I laid it out flat, and I drew straight lines
down both sides using some chalk. And I also stuck some pins through both layers of fabric
to help keep them together through the next step, because knitted fabric STRETCHES like
nothing else.
In the next step, I’m going to be using my overlocker to SERGE down these two lines.
So here is some actually useful tips about sewing with knitted fabrics.
So this is an overlocker, also known as Serger - stickers available from DFTBA.com - and
before serging any kind of fabric, especially bulky, knitted fabric like I'm using here,
you should adjust the settings on your serger. So I am setting my differential feed to "2",
which will give me, hopefully, flat seams. If you set it to this, we're going to get
real wavy seams, so it needs to be set to "2".
I'm also setting my stitch... length? Yes. This is length. I'm also setting my stitch
length to the, uh, longest length possible. And finally I am using nylon threads because
they are stretchier. I worked out all of these adjustments by reading
the manual for my machine - your machine will probably be a bit different, so a good idea
is to read the manual. But the most important one is this one here,
the differential feed. And I practiced on the fabric that I cut off
from the arms until I got a nice, flat seam. See, this is one of my first attempts - that
is what I did not want.
So, after doing all that I put the sweater into the serger and I serged down those lines
I drew earlier!
And, guys, I actually managed to sew a pretty flat seam on my sweater there! It was still
the tiniest bit ruffled but hey, it’s pretty good – because sewing together two layers
of chunky knit is really difficult, so I'm pretty proud of myself.
Okay so then I decided to do the rest of the measuring by putting my sweater on this dress
form, because I was sick of how itchy and hot the sweater was making me.
So the thing I did next was to essentially trace those cut-outs directly onto the sweater
using some chalk. Obviously, using a dressform also makes this process somewhat easier than
trying to trace it out while wearing it on myself.
So once I had drawn on those cutouts I… cut them out. Using some fabric scissors.
I cut about 1 inch outside the chalk lines, to give myself some hemming allowance.
And when that was done… it looked like this. And it’s looking quite similar to the original
at this point, if I do say so myself!
The next step was to hem all the raw edges to give them a neat finish, which I did by
first going all the way around the raw edges with my overlocker...
And then folding the hem up inside the garment about ½ an inch and using a stretch stitch
to go over the top, and using a walking foot attachment as well. These two techniques stop
the hem from ruffling on the knitted fabric.
So this is what it looked like when I was done, and ummhhh... I realised at this point
that I had been a bit too enthusiastic with those side cutouts...
See now, on this mannequin, it looks like there’d just be “tasteful” amounts of
sideboob, right?
But unfortunately this dress form is not exactly the same size as me. SO when I actually tried
this on – uhh… how to say this delicately…
My boobs spilled out the sides.
This is why I probably should have tried it on before cutting it out. Welp. Too late now.
It’s time to try and salvage this project. Which I did by grabbing the one sleeve that
I hadn’t already butchered by practising on it before with my serger, and I cut this
sleeve in half, then I placed it underneath the side cut outs like this, to give a little
bit more coverage at the front. I pinned it on, repeating this for the other side, and
then I sewed these extra pieces on like THIS, again using a stretch stitch.
Next, the fabric also went a little bit more… floopy? Than I expected after making the cutouts,
and it also gaped a bit at the sides, so to fix this, I turned the garment inside out,
laid it flat like this… and essentially I made this part tighter by sewing a line
like this, through both layers of fabric.
The very LAST step was adding a tie at the back.
I’m not sure why this tie exists on the original, I think that it’s probably just
purely decorative – in any case, it’s definitely not going to be functional on my
backless sweater.
So first I estimated how long each tie would be by pretending that my measuring tape was
the tie, and getting the approximate length from this.
I cut out two long pieces of cotton fabric in a matching colour, each of them measuring
33 by 2 and half inches.
And I folded both in half lengthways, sewed down this edge, turned them inside out using
a bodkin, ironed them flat and then sewed down the middle of them like this.
Finally, I attached them together in one long strap, and then I hand-sewed it onto the back
of the sweater just underneath the turtleneck… and I tied it into a pretty bow.
And with that… I was done. So…. Oh man I still can’t believe I’ve made this item
of clothing… How did I go?
(dorky music plays)
Mmpphh!! I wanna take this off NOW!
(Sigh) but first - some shots.
This is what it looks like from the front. I'm gunna put pants on to show you the back.
So we've got the turtleneck at the front, we've got ample side-boob... we have a "V"
cutout at the butt, waistline here, for a lot of...
butt cleavage!
Oh look! We've got some more sideboob there, we've got the tie... that doesn't... function.
Mmm. Yeah. So, uh, Pfffft. This is, uh, 100% wool! So... and it's, it's summer where I
live right now! I do not feel sexy... at all.
Mm, baby. I'm so itchy.
Here's a hot tip for those of you planning on recreating this - not that I particularly
recommend doing so - use a sweater that's not 100% wool, like maybe, more polyester?
I couldn't figure out what the original was made of but I'm betting it isn't 100% pure
wool. Turns out, that's not very comfortable to
wear!
And yep, so I'm feeling REALLY uncomfortable and awkward right now... so... uhh...
END CARD!
'Kay so I made it.
[Make Thrift Buy Music .... Bowp bow!]
At the very least, even if you don't plan on making one of these for yourself - and
more power to you if you do, I think you should be able to wear whatever you want... it just
doesn't suit me! - I hope you learned some tips and tricks on serging knitted fabrics!
Make sure you check out my merchandise store over at dftba.com for some punderful sewing
stickers, and an awesome Make Thrift Buy poster, to help support my channel and more quality
videos like this one! That's all for now, I'll see you all in my next video.
Bye!
Thank you to all of my supporters on Patreon for making these videos possible. To become
my patreon supporter go to patreon.com/annikavictoria!