Tuesday’s Tutorial Treat–Easy Square Top

A super-easy tutorial today. This one comes from Cotton & Curls – which is FULL of really great refashions and DIYs, so do check it out if you haven’t done so yet.

link HERE

Lace Bandeau Knickers Tutorial

I’m so excited to be able to share a little tutorial with you all today. These lacy Bandeau Knickers are seriously easy to sew up, I literally made a pair from scratch in about 10 minutes (and that included figuring out how to make it!). These are based on knickers that I own (the black pair in the tutorial photos) and wear all the time (TMI?!). I am a bit obsessed about VPL (Visible Pantie Line) and these knickers are, in my opinion, the best way to ensure you never have the dreaded lumps and bumps you can get with regular jersey/elastic knickers – and they look sexier than other “no VPL” knickers and are super comfy to wear!

So let’s get on with the tutorial:

Materials:

• About 1.2 yards of 6” – 7” wide elasticated lace
• Thread (matching your lace)
• An old cotton jersey T-Shirt in matching colour to your lace
• A pair of RTW knickers (preferably in this style, but not necessary)
• An overlocker & a regular sewing machine
• Ribbon or Button (optional)

Instructions:
Get Your Measurements & Draft Your Pattern
As I mentioned, I made these based on a pair of knickers I already own. So if you own a similar pair, then please use these as your measurement guide. Otherwise, I will talk you through how you can draft your own pattern for the knickers based on your measurements.

Using the diagram above as a guide, find out your measurements for A (just below your waist, where you would like the top of your knickers to come to – I measured lower than the diagram shows) and B (around your upper thigh).

To find out the length of the waist/top edge of your pattern piece divide A by 4 and take off 3 inches. For the leg, divide B by 2 and take 2 inches off. We are dividing our measurements as the lace will be cut on a fold and taking off the extra inches to allow for a neat fit. It may require a little bit of trial and error regarding how many inches to take off. These figures are based on my own personal findings!

If you already own a well fitting pair of knickers like these, then all you have to do is fold your knickers in half along the sewn crotch line and then measure the upper line and lower line. Remember to keep your lace parallel to ensure an accurate measurement.

Now that you have the two measurements for your pattern piece you can draft your own pattern based on the diagram above. To get an accurate crotch curve (lovely! can’t wait to see what Google search results my blog now turns up in!) you can just copy a pair of knickers, tights or leggings you already have. I used the black pair above to make my pattern piece.

Cut your Lace

Fold your lace in half just long enough to fit your pattern piece. Place the pattern piece on top and secure with pattern weights (anything heavy!) and carefully cut out. Repeat.

You should now have two pieces of lace, that, when unfolded, look like the above.

Sewing Your Knickers!

Place the two pieces of lace RIGHT sides together, aligning curves. Sew each curve on your overlocker.

TIP - It can be difficult sewing a concave curve on an overlocker so I recommend deactivating your knife and pulling the curve straight while sewing (see image above). It won’t affect the seam.

To secure the top of the seam run it back through the overlocker for about an inch and then trim.

Now that both curves have been sewn your lace will start to resemble knickers! Position so that both seams are on top of each other, again with RIGHT sides together. Sew together on your overlocker. Repeat to secure seam.

Your knickers are nearly complete!

The Cotton Lining

As I’m sure you all know, knickers have a strip of cotton in the crotch for added comfort and hygiene, so we shall do the same for these knickers.

Use a pair of your own knickers to draft the correct size and shape for your lining. For information mine is about 1.5” at one end, 2.5” at the other and 6” long.

Use this to cut out a lining piece from an old, clean t-shirt.

Sew a rolled hem around all edges of your lining pieces.

TIP – for neat corners, ensure the knife on your overlocker is activated and once you reach the end of one side keep serging to get a long enough chain to bring the piece back under the presser foot and sew the next edge – this will cut off the chain from the previous edge (see above image), and produce a secure corner. Trim all excess chains once all edges are complete.

Lay your knickers open so that the crotch is lying flat, wrong side facing up. Pin your lining piece into the crotch, ensuring seams are lying flat.

Using a REGULAR sewing machine, sew the lining in place with a normal straight stich.

DONE!

Extras:

Since it was St. Valentine’s Day recently, I thought it would be sweet to add some little extra details to the knickers. On one pair I’ve added a little red gingham bow and the other a red heart button. These look extra cute, but obviously make the knickers a little less “invisible” under clothes, so do take that into consideration when making yours.
Elastic lace comes in all sorts of wonderful colours and patterns, so you could create endless looks even without adding any extra details.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful. I know many of you may not own an overlocker/serger and I’m afraid I don’t know if you could make these completely on a regular sewing machine. Perhaps if you used an overlocking stitch? If anyone has ever made these just on the regular sewing machine then please do let me know which stitch you used. Or, if anyone wants to give it a try, please do let me know how you got on!

I’m off now to sew up a whole drawer-full of lacy knickers!!

P.S. I’m Linking to:
  

I made it….AND I wore it! 7

A bit of red and pink in honour of Valentine’s day this week. This is the first outing for my Crescent skirt since starting IMIAIWI and since it’s still pretty cold around here I decided to pair it with a polo neck, tights and boots. I’m not a massive fan of the outfit and to be honest, the photos have got me rethinking me in polo necks!! But you know what…that’s part of what this exercise is all about.

Passing on the Liebster Blog Award

 

Thanks to the lovely Gina from Fingers, Chopsticks and Bobbins for nominating me as one of her chosen 5 blogs for the Liebster Blog Award – I’m so chuffed!

If you haven’t heard of this before here’s the gist of it in a nutshell:

"the origins of the Liebster Blog Award are somewhat unclear but the general consensus is that it means favourite or dearest to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers."

And it comes with the following ‘rules’:

1 - thank your liebster blog award presenter on your blog.

2 - link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.

3 - copy/paste the blog award on your blog.

4 - present the liebster blog award to 5 blogs with 200 followers or less.

5 - let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment.

 

And with that, here are my 5 chosen blogs that I’m passing this on to:

1. Cation Designs
2. Sewin’ Steady
3. Magpie Makes
4. Ozzy Blackbeard Knits and Sews
5. Bundana

That was really hard to whittle it down to 5 (I follow a LOT of blogs)..but the 5 I have chosen are all super talented ladies and you should definitely check out their blogs if you haven’t done so yet!

Holy Cowl - I made a top!

Well I am so excited to be able to share my latest make with you all today. I gave you a sneak-peak on Sunday, but the photos didn’t really show the top off very well – so here it now is, in all it’s glory!

OK, so why am I so excited about sharing this top with you? It’s just a simple cowl neck top right? Well yes, but did I mention that I drafted the pattern for this MYSELF?!!! Yes-siree, I started with no pattern and ended with a top that I just totally love! Well actually, to be completely honest, I started with a RTW top that I really loved, and after a fair bit of head-scratching and a few slightly squew-if muslin attempts I had a eureka moment last Wednesday night and cracked it,

I whipped this top up (including making up a muslin version, copying that onto a neat paper pattern and then making up the purple version) in a few hours on Wednesday night, so it really is a quick and simple make. It’s super neat inside, with french seams and pale lilac bias binding on the arm holes and back neck. Oh, and the edge of the cowl neck is done with a neat baby hem (one of my techniques to tick-off for my 12 in 2012). The neatest bit though is that the shoulder seams are completely enclosed because of the cowl neck. I don’t have photos of it to show you today (doh!), but I’ll take some and show you another time (there will be a lot more of these tops to come!).

The fabric is a really buttery-soft voile which I got on sale from M is for Make last year. They didn’t have a full meter of the fabric left, so amazingly you can squeeze this top out of less than a meter! The RTW top that I copied was made from some sort of slinky poly so the cowl is a lot less prominent and drapes better, but I took a chance with the voile and I’m happy with how it turned out. It was also very easy to work with (while a slippery fabric would not be!) so that was an added bonus. As you can see from the photos above, the front piece is cut on the bias while the back isn’t. It does mean that the pattern doesn’t in any way, shape or form match up, but to be honest I don’t think it matters. Having the front on the bias obviously aids with the drape of the cowl, while having the back on the straight of grain gives stability to the shoulders and keeps the tops structure. You may also notice from the photos above, that the front of the top has a curved hem, while the back is straight. The original top has a straight hem front and back, but the curve was born out of necessity, due to lack of fabric! Turns out I rather like the curved hem – and I am tempted to turn the back hem into a curve as well. Or I might not be bothered on this occasion – I plan to wear the top mainly tucked in so it doesn’t really matter.

I had bought this fabric to make a Sorbetto out of, but I’m afraid that the Sorbetto just doesn’t really suit me (oh oh, I fear severe backlash from the huge Sorbetto fan club for saying that! I didn’t say I didn’t like the pattern – just that it didn’t suit me!!), so I’m really pleased with how I ended up using the fabric. I have a few more fabrics in my stash which I am hoping to turn into cowl tops (including a certain Liberty Silk I might have picked up recently).

And the other reason why I’m super excited to share this make with you is that, once I figure out how to actually do it, I’m hoping to share the pattern on the blog!! Yeay for free patterns!