McGuire -Inspired Buttonback Top with Flutter Sleeves

Had some amazing white Japanese cotton lying around and went on a quick inspiration hunt, and sure enough found it - courtesy of New York label McGuire (mainly known for their denim). Slight adjustment with a bit fuller ruffle detail and no pop up neck.

Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support me with a donation that feels right for you, here.

TOOLS:

Cotton fabric 1.5m  |  Scissors  |  6 buttons  |  Pins  |  Thread, needle, sewing machine  |  Bias tape

I. Here are the pieces I cut. I needed to do some slight trimming as I went along but the measurements were pretty good for my size (EU36/US 4).

II. Before pinning the shoulder seams and doing flat-felled seams following these steps. I cut the neckline to my desired depth (about 15 cm down).

III. Then I put my head through and confirmed the length of the shoulder line. Ended up trimming about 3 cm off the shoulder.

IV. Next I constructed the back button bands. I first took my two strips of fabric and placed them right side facing right side of the top, about 2.5 cm away from the center back on each side.

.. And sewed them in place.

Then I pressed the seams and also pressed a 0.5 cm fold along the other long edge.

Next I folded them on top of themselves, pinning in place..

.. And sewed the fold, trimming the corner. Also notched the main top piece right up until the stitch I just added.

From there I folded the button band right side out, gently pushing out the corner I had trimmed. Next pressed from there down to the hem as shown. I had some extra there so trimmed the fold a bit, so I had just over 1 cm left..

.. And went on to first fold a small triangle at the beginning:

Then double folded like so, and hand-stitched in place.

V. At this point I also finished the neckline using this bias tape technique. Then pinned the sides together right sides facing and sewed those together.

At which point I had this.

VI. On to the front ruffle detail. I grabbed a medium sized circular thing from the house (which was a round pot holder or whatever these are called, with a 22-cm diameter). Used that to trace one circle, and another one 7 cm further.

Before cutting the inner circle out, I pinned my bias tape along the circumference of the circle, the fold opened at the side that aligns with the edge of the circle. Same idea as when doing a neckline, then sewed along the open fold line.

Then folded the bias tape twice as I show in the neckline tutorial and sewed in place.

.. And cut along the smaller inner circle to create the ruffle. Prepped it by zig-zagging the long raw edge and pressing a small fold on it.

VII. Then positioned the ruffle at the front of the top and pressed folds where they would meet the side and the shoulder seam. Note: yeah, sure, I could have attached the ruffle at the point where I did the side seams, but I wans't really do commit to its position without being able to try on the top properly to see how it flowed. And to do that I first had to have the side seams done.

Then clipped the extra from the ends of the ruffle and sewed them in place - right along the side seam. Once I had attached the ends to the side seam and the shoulder seam, I pinned the rest in place and sewed along the upper edge of the ruffle.

VIII. Finally, the sleeves. For them I made another circle like this:

.. And trimmed it down to two pieces like this.

Lined the sides (except for the shorter curved edge) with bias tape, sewing the corner as shown below. Then sewed along the fold line.

And trimmed the corner.

And flipped the bias tape over to the reverse, pressing well, and the corner I had stitched flattened nicely.

IX. To attach the sleeves, I first did not get it right. I pinned the piece along the arm hole, aligning the middle of it with the shoulder seam. Sewed in place. Then tried on and realized the sleeves were waay too fluffy.

.. So opened up the seam at both ends about 10 cm and pulled the sleeve part in, sewing it again at an adjusted angle. Resulting in a less intense sleeve fluffiness.

X. I wanted to do the arm holes with bias tape as well but.. Ran out of bias tape. So had to just zig-zag and fold them. Sewed these by hand too to avoid the stitched look.

XI. Finally. Marked the button holes at regular intervals, sewed them, and hand-sewed the buttons onto the other side. I accidentally made one of the button bands longer than the other, but I actually liked it and on purpose put the longer one underneath, I thought it made for a nice detail.

Last as always, hand-hemmed the whole thing with a double fold!



xo,

Julia