This fabric brings wonderful memories of when I was a little girl. My mom made an adorable sailor outfit with a matching top and short. Unfortunately I misplaced the outfit. I love the color and texture of this light fabric, I am not sure what it is. It brought me through many summers without AC . It’s very youthful and happy perhaps because of the memories.
I am using a pin to make the pattern, a technique my mom came up with and taught me, for this scrap fabric top made from different pieces of cloth sewn together. You can make a copy of clothing or anything you like with this method. To add more flavor to this top, I decided to use my mom’s old top as the model. As a little girl I loved to play “try on mom’s clothes”. I also like that it looks like a similar top I saw in a Korean fashion blog recently. This project was for fun, no rules apply, I just made it up as I go and see what comes out of it.
So play, I keep it fun and it’s just scraps anyways if you mess up. This is my first time making a complete pattern. I hope you’ll enjoy playing around with the idea.
Basic pattern components
* Remember to add extra 1/4″ all around the edges for the seam.
Making pattern A & B
This is the easiest part. The goal is to get two pieces of fabric that will cover the front and back of the body width and lengthwise. Pattern A & B are rectangles sewn together for this need. You can get creative and use triangles, squares or any shape you want with your scraps. To make it easier, if you have more fabric, you can make two rectangles instead. Also play around with the pattern of the fabric such as using horizontal and vertical patterns in the fabric to gives it more style.
Making Pattern C
- Fold the body (A&B) in half and fold your garment in half. Line it up with the body and mark the 3 points in red.
- Take the model garment and lay it, as flat as you can, on top of a piece of thick stock paper. I used a thicker ad magazine page (always reuse/recycle).
- Use weights to hold the garment in place.
- Using a pin poke holes along the edges of the sleeves, front neck hole and back neck hole. I’ve shown it with pins sticking in the garment so you get the idea where to poke.
- Connect the dots.
- Cut the back neck out and tape it back loosely so you can use one pattern for both the front and back.
- Line the paper pattern with the 3 red dots and trace.
- Cut sleeve holes and the shoulder slants. DO NOT CUT THE NECK HOLES YET.
You don’t need to worry about the length of the body since it’s already done.
Cutting neck holes
I altered the round neck to a v-neck after the photos were taken. I thought the straight pattern suits this top more than the round neck and the straightness makes it a lot easier to sew.
At this point plan out the rest of patterns. Here I’ve place loose pieces that would approximately fit pattern D & E.
Making Pattern D
Follow the same directions as pattern C and use a pin and thick stock paper to create pattern C. With the fabric I had left, I’ve piece together enough fabric to complete the sleeves and kept the horizontal against vertical stripes theme.
- Piece together enough fabric to make two sleeves, cut off excess fabric
- Sew underarm together
Making Pattern E
Follow the same directions as pattern C and use a pin and thick stock paper to create pattern E with modifications. I’ve changed it to a V-neck shown in red.
- Cut 4 pieces
- Sew 2 pieces together, right sides together as shown with the white dashed line
- Turn inside out so the right side is showing
- do same for the other 2 pieces
Making Pattern F
Front neck (F1):
- Cut two rectangle (F1) that will cover the v-neck
- From the inside, place (E, F1, Body) in order and sew together
- Flip (E) out to the front and iron. Layer order now becomes (F1, Body, E) sew F1 & Body together (do not sew E)
Back neck (F2):
- Cut a half curve shape (F2)
- Sew (F2 & Body) right sides together and flip (F2) inside and iron down.
Finishing Steps
- Sew slant of shoulders
- Match sleeves to body right sides together and sew.
- Sew the finishing edges for sleeves and the bottom of the garment.