One more for the road before we ring in 2017! With this top I'm at 33 or so projects for the year (that I documented), which is almost 3 new pieces a month. I didn't quite hit my goal of sewing one garment a week in 2016.. Which is mostly because of travels, and I wouldn't change that for the World! Something to aim for next year.
A few days ago I was contemplating making a stripy buttondown skirt with a huge matching belt/bow, but then the heavens decended on me and I remembered this gorgeous thing I had pinned a while back. Skirt had to step aside!
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TOOLS:
Cotton or poplin, 2m (or 2.5 to be safe, I used exactly 2 m) | Scissors | Pins | Thread & Sewing machine | Bias tape (just to go around one arm hole) | Invisible zipper | Ignore the buttons, instead you need a short piece of narrow elastic, about 30 cm
I. This is what I cut out first for the top (I'm EU36/US4). Identical pieces for back and front, just made the arm hole a bit deeper for the back piece.
II. First added small darts to the front piece to give structure around the bust, then pinned the sides without the shoulder strap together and sewed the first side seam.
III. Then took my invisible zipper and added it to the other side, and finished that side seam as well. Here's a pretty sweet walkthrough of invisible zipper installation if you need detail.
IV. Next I checked for size. There was some sticking out in the neckline so added a small dart there as well (this will be covered by the ruffle).
So to recap at this point I had the top constructed.
.. On the reverse it looked like this:
V. On to the arm hole. I pinned my bias tape along the edges of the arm hole, like this, remembering to fold up the bias tape at the start and the beginning. I show this process in more detail in this post.
Once sewn around along the fold, I pressed the bias tape flat and trimmed the seam allowance so it did not go over half of the tape..
.. Then pressed again so the tape folded over the seam allowance:
.. And once more so the whole bias tape was on the reverse. Then sewed around to secure in place.
The finished arm hole:
VI. Ruffle cutting! To make the most out of the fabric I had left, and to make sure the stripes in the ruffles weren't straight (I have issues with certain things being too orderly, I also can't set the alarm for 8.30, it needs to be 8.27 or 8.32) ... I cut them slightly diagonally. With my 1m wide fabric, the strips came out about 120 cm long. I cut two pieces for each ruffle, so I had a total of around 240 cm of a more narrow 22 cm-wide ruffle, and the same amount of a wider 26 cm-wide ruffle.
Attached the two pieces trying to match the stripes and make the seam as unnoticeable as possible. Zig-zagged one long edge of each piece.
VII. Next comes the ruffle attaching. Starting with the more narrow ruffle (the one that will be on top in the finished top), I started pinning the zig-zagged edge of the ruffle to the neckline of the reverse side of the top, right side of fabric facing reverse of top. I started about 10 cm from the side seam without the zipper. This will make sense soon.
As I pinned the ruffle, I created 5-8 cm cm wide pleats all the way, alternating the exact size of the pleat and their distance (in other words, super easy and you can't mess it up - irregular at least in my opinion looks better). Just one thing to note: make sure the folds of your pleats point upwards, away from the zipperless side seam. This way they will flow naturally on the right side, into the opposite direction.
So on the back side of the top, you'll want the pleat folds to point in the other direction, 'uphill' the curve of the neckline. (You might notice that I made my pleats a bit less frequent on the back).
.. Once I got close to the side seam having gone all around, I stopped again pinning about 10 cm from the seam, so that the free tails of the ruffle totalled 35 cm. This is the piece that will go around the arm when worn.
VIII. Sew all around the pinned edge and then sew together the ends of the ruffle piece that are still free.
This is what you'll have when turning the whole thing right side out and before any ironing.
IX. To complete the 'sleeve' or the part going around the arm, notch the seam allowance where the stitch attaching the ruffle to the neckline ends, zig-zag the raw edge, and fold it down. Then sew a straight stitch securing the casing for the elastic in place, and add the elastic. Worth trying on to confirm what tightness of elastic is comfortable. Then just sew the elastic at each end so it stays put.
X. So close!! Time to add the bottom ruffle. Turn the project reverse side out again, and start pinning the wider ruffle piece from the side seam. The 'sleeve' part of the upper ruffle will hang underneath out of the way.
Continue all the way around, this time adding less but bigger pleats (or whatever style pleats you prefer). Just making sure again the folds of the pleats point upwards. Sew the whole thing in place.
XI. Ta-da! Flipping the top right side out you'll have two layers of ruffle. At this point I trimmed the top ruffle a bit at the front and irregularly around, so I got the piled up look I wanted.
XII. To finish the ruffling I added understitching - lifted the top ruffle out of the way and sewed the bottom ruffle to the top. This is a key step so the neckline stays firm when worn.
Lastly I just finished the hem of the top with a double fold, and did a rolled hem on the ruffles. So much love for this!!!
xo,
Julia
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I would love to hear what you think and learn about your DIY adventures! If you use one of my tutorials, tag me on social @contour_affair, I'd love to see!