How to make. a wrap top. A set of sewing instructions by

Transcription

1 How to make a wrap top A set of sewing instructions by

2 The wrap top You will need This set of instructions will guide you through the process of making a wrap top, without a sewing pattern. The wrap top is a loose, long sleeved top that can be wrapped around your body and fastened with a belt, or left open to drape in undulating folds. The wrap top is made of three main body segment; a back and two front pieces... Fabric The amount of fabric you need for the wrap top will depend on your size and on what kind of top you are making, however 2.5 metres of 150cm (60inch) wide fabric usually does the trick. Thread Choose a thread that is a similar colour to your fabric. Take a cutting of fabric into the shop with you when you go. If you can t find an exact match, choose a thread that is slightly darker than your fabric. Tape measure Any tape measure will do. Sewing machine You can make professional garments with just two stitches, straight and zig-zag, which are the two most basic stitches found on nearly all sewing machines. You will only need these two stitches to make the wrap top.... two sleeve pieces... Iron An iron is as important as a sewing machine when it comes to making clothes. Tailors chalk You can get tailors chalk in the form of a big flat soapy triangle as pictured or as a pencil. Either will do. Tailors chalk allows you to make marks onto your fabric that easily brush or wash off. Rub the tailors chalk on in short, firm strokes whilst pressing the fabric down with your free hand to hold it securely....and one long strip of fabric to make a collar... Seam ripper The seam ripper is the tool to turn to when you ve sewn stitches that shouldn;t be there. Just slip the long metal spike under your unwanted stitch and push. The curved metal edge will slice through your thread. Bobbin Your sewing machine should come with a few empty bobbins, made of plastic or metal. You need to wind thread onto this yourself. Your sewing machine instruction book will tell you how to do this. You can also make belt holders from three small rectangles of fabric... Fabric scissors Get yourself a pair of fabric scissors. Cheap ones will work fine and more expensive ones will probably last you forever. Look after your scissors - don t cut paper with them, it will blunt the blades, which will start snagging your fabric. Pins You need a few pins, the sharper the better.... or fasten the top with a button, a brooch or press-stud 01 02

3 Variations The magenta wrap top photographed throughout this book is made in a light drapey fabric. It was made with very wide front pieces, creating lots of long folds at the front. It has a contrasting green collar 7cm deep. and a red pom pom trim. The lime green wrap top on p39 and p40 is made from a semi-transparent chiffon. We french seamed all the seams on this top, including the sleeve seams, for a neat finish. The sleeves themselves are very narrow, with just enough remove to push a hand through at the end. This version of the wrap top has fairly short front pieces, the ends of which hang just above the waist, giving an almost blazer-like appearance. The pink wrap top on pages p23 and p24 is made with a woolen fabric that has an extremely loose weave. We zig zagged stitched around the edges of all the pieces as soon as they were cut to stop them falling apart. This version of the wrap top has four pleats inserted at the top of each sleeve cap to give fullness at the shoulder. There is an explanation of how to do this on p21 and p22. The red wrap top on p16 is much shorter than all the others. It is made with a medium weight but slightly stiff fabric.. We added shoulder pads to this version to give it a regimented look. It has a pom pom trim along the bottom hem. The gingham wrap top on p30 has been made with very common, medium weight cotton. It is not really drapey at all. The bottom corners of the front pieces have been trimmed into curves. Like the long peach wrap top, no collar has been added Instead, the whole outer edge has been finished with black bias binding. The pale orange wrap top on p32 is made of extremely lightweight fabric. It has croped sleeves and is so long in fact that it is worn as a dress. There is no collar on this dress. The bottom edge and two vertical edges have not been hemmed. Instead, they have been finished with bias bindig, which goes all the way around the edge of the top including the neckline. This version is fastened with a rouleaux loop and button at both sides. 03 The royal blue wrap top on p19 and p20 is made with a fairly weighty fabric. It has a12cm deep collar and a button has been added at the right shoulder to hold the left front piece in position across the body. The right front piece is held in place on the inside with a press stud. The top is worn with a black belt that nips it in at the waist, The black wrap top on p25 is made of weighty, wintery fabric that is slightly stiffer than all the rest. This causes the large 18cm deep collar to stand proud around the neck. This top fastens like the royal blue wrap top, with a button on one side and a press stud on the other, but is worn without a belt. The slate wrap top on p33 and p34 is made in a slightly heavier fabric and has a contrasting black collar made of chiffon. It has much narrower front pieces than the magenta wrap top, so the collar appears to finish higher up the body. 04

4 First you re going to draw one half of the back piece of your top. So that the finished wrap top hangs nicely, try to position your garment squarely on your fabric i.e. so the bottom edge runs parallel with the bottom edge of your fabric. if you folded the shirt in half down the middle, the fold line would be parallel with the edge of your fabric - not at a slanted angle! SELVAGE Select a long sleeved garment to use as a guide for sketching your wrap top. Choose something that fits you well but isn t stretchy or tight fitting. A shirt is perfect. A jumper will do the job. We are making all our markings directly onto our fabric, but if you prefer you can complete this whole process with coloured pens onto pieces of newspaper, making a paper pattern. SELVAGE If you are happy with the length of your template top, lay your garment on top of your garment on top of your fabric so the hemline sits around 3cm above the bottom edge. If you would like a much longer wrap top, measure yourself from the point where your neck meets your shoulder, down to wherever you want the bottom of the top to sit. Measure this length on to your fabric and mark it with chalk or a pin. Lay the shoulder edge of your template top at this mark.. Start drawing around the body shape on the right side. The shoulder seam will naturally sit slightly to the front of the shirt. Just ignore that seam and work from the edge of the shirt as it is. Fold the sleeve out of the way so you can roughly trace the curve of seam where the sleeve meets the main body. Draw your lines roughly 1.5cm away from where your garment edge sits. 05 Continue drawing down the side to the bottom of your fabic, then draw the sloping shoulder line (which should be straight) and the neck curve. Fold your collar out of the way to access this. Make a little short sharp mark at either side of the neck curve so later on you ll be sure how wide it is.. 06

5 Cut out your perfectly symmetrical back piece. You ve drawn around one half of your template garment and you don t need to draw around the other. Just mark a few key points with chalk: a b c The shoulder point (where the top of the sleeve meets the shoulder seam) The armpit point (where the bottom of the sleeve meets the side seam) The bottom left edge of the hem. Make your marks around 1.5cm away from your template garment. You also need to mark the centre point along the bottom edge of the shape your marking. It s better to do this with a pin. Cut around the right half of the shape you have drawn then fold it over to the left - pivoting on the central marker pin and matching up the key points. The fold you make should be roughly parallel with the vertical edge of your fabric. Don t worry if all your points don t match perfectly,. Put a few pins into the folded half to keep it steady, then cut around, so that you are creating a perfectly symmetrical shape. You have made your back piece. 07

6 You are now going to use your back piece as a template to cut your two front pieces. Each front piece should be either the same width as your back piece or wider than it, as the two front pieces are designed to either overlap each other. (as opposed to meeting in the middle like a normal jacket) or drape down at the front. 52cm If you intend your front pieces to hang free with no fastening, a wider front piece will create the appearance of a longer jacket at the front. If you want the corners of your jecket to hang right down to your waist, measure roughly from the point where your neck meets your shoulder down to your waist. This is how far you should make your front piece extend beyond the shoulder point of your top. If you would like the corners to dangle above or below your waist, measure from your neck to that point and apply the same logic. The front pieces of our wrap top are fairly wide. They measure52cm from the shoulder point across to the top corner, which is slightly longer than the distance from neck point to waist on the model. Our front pieces measure 75cm across the full bottom edge. 75cm If you are adding a fastening to your wrap top, the wider the front pieces, the more drape you will have across the front, creating a cowl like appearance. Measure from where your neck meets your shoulder acorss your body to your opposite shoulder. Your front piece will need to be wider than this to create drape. Have a look at our descriptions of the variations photographed throughout these instructions to decide how wide you want to make your front pieces!. 09

7 You are now going to use your back piece as a template to cut your two front pieces. Lay your back piece out on your fabric as a guide to mark your first front piece. Measure along the bottom edge however wide you would like your front piece to be. From this point, draw a straight line upwards until it is level with roughly the shoulder point of your back piece (illustrated above). To make sure this line runs at a right angle to the bottom edge of your fabric, you can use a piece of paper to square up your metre/yard stick.. Cut around the left side of your back piece, until you get to the deepest bit of the neck line (this should be the middle!) then, before cutting any more, fold down the shoulder of your front piece - or remove the front piece altogether - so you don t snip it off.. Draw another chalk line from that deepest point of the neckline, horizontally along til you hit your first chalk line. Continue cutting from where you left off, along both straight chalk lines. 11 Use your first piece as a template to cut a second front piece.. Flip it over and lay it on top of your fabric. Cut around it, creating a mirror image of your first front piece. 12

8 Now you need to join your two front pieces to your back piece. When you start a line of straight stitch, position your needle and machine foot slightly inland i.e. not directly at the back edge, but about half a cm in from that edge. Your machine sews naturally forwards, towards you. Set your machine to sew backwards - there will probably be a lever you need to hold down, or a button to press. Slowly cover the distance to the back of your fabric in reverse. Lay your back piece out with the right side of the fabric facing upwards towards you. Take one front piece and lay it on top of your back piece with the right side of the fabric facing downwards. The right sides should be touching each other on the inside like the jam on the inside of a sandwich. When your needle is at the far edge of the fabric, you can begin to sew forwards, directly over the line you have just sewn. This will hold the stitches in position and ensure you are making strong, long lasting garments. Pin the pieces together along the shoulder line, then sew along this line with straight stitch, about 1.5cm from the edge. See the top right corner of this page for some basic guidance on sewing with straight stitch. Repeat this process with the other front piece stitching it to the other shoulder of your back piece. Open the flaps at both shoulder seams like you are opening a book, and press them open with an iron. You are going to finish the raw edges of your seams with zig zag stitch. See the following page for guidance on this,

9 Zig-zag stitch along the raw edge on each of your seam flaps. The purpose of zig-zag stitching is to prevent the strands of fibre that make up your fabric from unravelling. Some fabrics are built in a way which means they will not fray. These are usually stretchy fabrics. Have a look at the edge of one of your fabric pieces and rub it gently between your thumb and finger. You will probably see some fibres beginning to show their ends. To prevent them from unravelling, you need to bind them into place with zig-zag stitch. When the sewing machine needle sews zig-zag stitch, it moves from left to right to left to right etc. When you are positioning your fabric on your machine, you need to place it so that the needle hits the fabric when it moves to the left, but hits air when it moves to the right i.e. you only want half of the zig-zag to land on your fabric. This means that instead of just sitting on your fabric, the stitch almost wraps around the edge of your fabric, binding the fibres and preventing any loose ones working themselves free. Having said this, don t worry if the odd stitch falls completely on your fabric the more you sew zig-zag, the more accurate you will become. 15

10 Now it s time to make your sleeves. To get the correct shape for the curve at the end, of your sleeve piece, you are going to use the garment you have just sewn as a guide. Lay your garment out flat. Take your fabric and fold a flap down, with the right side of the fabric hidden on the inside. The flap needs to be about two inches deeper tthan the depth of your sleeve hole. When determining this, your shoulder seam should be sitting at the same angle as the folded edge of the flap you re making.. The ruler in the top most photo indicates this. Slide your garment over so that the curved arm edge sits on top of your fabric. Draw a curve onto your fabric with tailors chalk, using the arm edge as a guide. Now you re going to make two marks with tailor s chalk. Firstly, measure 2 backwards along the curve you have just drawn and make a mark. Rulers are straight, and you just drew a curve, but din t worry too much about precise measurements! Secondly, measure 2 downwards from the end point of your curved line and make a mark. Position your ruler so that it is roughly at a right angle to the end of your curved line. NO SEWING HERE 17 Now you need to sketch a curve to join the two markes you just made. This should be a curve too, but it should bend in the oposite way to your original curve. When you ve drawn this, you will see you have made a sort of stretched S shape (but not as curvy as an S!). Finally, check the point where your chalk line hits the fold. This is where you first started drawing, so long ago! This line should hit the fold at a right angle, otherwise you ll be making a little point right in the middle of your sleeve.. If it s not already a right angle, just re-draw the end of the line so that it is. 18

11

12 We stopped sketching our sleeve just above the cufff of the shirt, where the sleeve would become much narrower. Now draw the main part of your sleeve. Now you re going to bring your template garment in one last time. Lay it on top of the flap of fabric so that the top of the shoulder seam is sitting on top of the chalk mark at the point where it hits the fold. Sketch out the shape of your sleeve, using your template garment as a guide. Make sure the shape you sketch is at least 1.5cm deeper than the sleeve on your template garment. It can be much wider than this if you are choosing to make a baggier sleeve. Bear in mind your sleeve needs to be wide enough for your hand to fit through at the wrist area. Make sure the line you are drawing underneath the sleeve meets the bottom of your original S shaped mark. Cut around the shape you have drawn. Use your first sleeve shape as a template to cut a second one exactly the same

13 You can sketch out a sleeve that has space for pleats or gathering. You are going to follow the basic process for drawing the sleeve illustrated on pages X and X above, with a few simple changes. When you initially lay your stitched garment on top of the fold of fabric, lay the shoulder point a few cm below the folded edge. The distance you lower it will be double the distance of one of your pleats. For instance, if you are making a box pleat at the shoulder, as illustrated here, and you would like each of the two pleats that make up the box pleat to be 1 deep, lower your stitched garment 2 below the folded edge. 21 When you turn to you template garment to draw out the main shape of the sleeve, lay the shoulder point of the garment at the same level you shifted your stitched garment to. In this case, that is 2. Instead of lying the top of the existing sleeve parallel with the folded edge of your fabric, tilt it, so the cuff meets the folded edge. Make sure the short line that marks the end of your sleeve meets the folded edge at a right angle, even if the end of your template gar,ent meets the fold at an acute angle. Find the centre point of the curve along the top of one of your sleeve pieces - you can do this by folding your sleeve piece in half. Mark this spot with a pin on the wrong side of the fabric. On the wrong side, pinch a bit of fabric roughly 2 away from the centre and drag it towards the pin. Meausure the fold you have made. It should be 1 deep! If it isn t, wiggle it around until it is. Pin the pleat into place and repeat on the other side of the centre pin, so you have two folds pinned into place on the inside of your sleeve. 22

14

15 Prepare your sleeve caps. To help make the ends of your sleeve fit into your arm hole, you re going to sew a line of ease stitch. This is simply a straight stitch -the longest straight stitch that your machine can sew - running parallel with the curved cap of your sleeve. Stick two marker pins into your sleeve, each one about 3inches away from the edge. You re going to sew between these two pins, along the bit of the sleeve that will sit at your shoulder. Run your line of stitching about 1cm away from the raw edge. You don t need to run the stitching backwards when you start and finish as you re going to pull this thread out later. If you are using fairly thin fabric, it will probably gather slightly as you sew. That s fine, go with it! Fold the sleeve in half and mark the centre of the sleeve cap by stickiing a pin carefully into the fold (you re not pinning the two sides together) or by making a mark with chalk. 25

16 You now need to join your sleeve pieces to your body piece. You need to pin the edge of your sleeve to the edge of your arm hole. Lay your garment out with the right side facing upwards towards you. Take one sleeve and flip it so the right side of the fabric is facing down. Place the pin that marks the centre of your sleeve right on top of the shoulder seamremove the pin and slip it straight back in again, this time pinning through both the sleeve and the garment. You have now anchored the sleeve to the top, and can continue pinning outwards from this point. Secure the sleeve to the top with a pin every inch or so, forcing the two raw edges to meet bit by bit. Pin away from the central pin until you reach the underarm point, then turn to the other side and pin away again until you reach the other underarm point. Place your pins in so they are running parallel with the edge of the fabric.. 27 This is the moment of truth; does your sleeve fit into your armhole?! If it is too big there are a few things you can do to fix the problem. If the sleeve is just a bit too big you can simply ignore the mismatch altogether and march onwards! If there is a big mismatch, you can unpin the sleeve and pull on the ends of thread that forms your line of ease stitch. This will add more gathers to your sleeve, forcing it to fit into a smaller area. If you want to speed onwards with your top and are open to a bit of a design change, you can freestyle a pleat - or a few pleats - at the top of your sleeve. See the previous page for guidance on doing this.. When your sleeve fits into your arm hole, stitch it into place with straight stitch, going slowly and taking the pins out as you go. Try to shuffle the fabric of the sleeve around bit by bit so you avoid sewing in any wrinkles. Trim the seam you have just made and finish it with zig zag stitch. Flip the sleeve outwards. You have attached your first sleeve! Repeat this entire process with the other sleeve. 28

17 Stitch the fronts to the back of your top at each side ON IR ON IR ON IR ON IR 29

18 Now it s time to hem the vertical edges on your two front pieces. IRON Turn your garment the right way round and try it on to get a feel for how it will look. The hardest part of the construction process is over and it s really coming together now! Whilst you are wearing the garment, have a look at the front pieces and see if they are as long as you would like them to be. You will lose about 2cm of fabric when you hem them. If they are longer than you would like, trim them down. IRON 31 To hem the front edges turn the garment inside out. Fold each edge back on itself once, about 1cm, and iron that fold into place, then fold it back on itself a second time so that the raw edge is tucked under and hidden. Iron it again then pin the folds. Sew these folded edges down with a row of straight stitch running from top to bottom, as close as possible to the folded edge.

19

20 Mark and cut collar... I would like my collar to be deep x 2 = With a seam allowance of x 2 = + = SEAM ALLOWANCE DESIRED DEPTH OF COLLAR DESIRED DEPTH OF COLLAR SEAM ALLOWANCE For your collar, you need to mark and cut a long rectangle of fabric. The rectangle needs to be around 8cm longer than the neck edge of your top. Measure the length of the neck edge on your garment with a tape measure., then measure this length along the horizontal edge of your fabric and mark that point with a pin.. The collar piece needs to be double the depth that you want the collar to be plus 3cm for seam allowance. You can choose how deep you want your collar to be you could make it dramatically deep or skinny and understated. The one on the top we are making here has a finished depth of 7cm. We doubled that, to make 14cm, then we added two lots of 1.5cm seam allowance to make a total depth of 17cm. Work out the depth you need using the simple maths spelled out at the top right of this page, then mark that distance up the vertical edge of your fabric You need to prep your collar with a bit of ironing. Iron it in half along the middle, with the wrong side of the fabric on the inside, then open it up and iron a 1.5cm deep fold along one of the long raw edges, it doesn t matter which one

21 Now you re going to attach the collar to the neck edge. Lay your garment out with the right side facing upwards towards you. Lay the collar piece on top of it with the edge you didn t iron sitting on top of the collar edge of your garment. You should be looking at the wrong side of the fabric on your collar piece. Remember, the collar piece is longer than your neck edge so a bit of it should stick out beyond your front pieces at both sides. Pin the two together all the way along the neck edge then sew them together with a long line of straight stitch. After you ve stitched, check that the stitching hasn t caught any pinched bits of fabric along the neck edge of the main garment. Pull the collar piece upwards away from the garment and flip the whole thing over, so your looking at the wrong side of both garment and collar. Iron the seam you have just created upwards, including the bit of seam allowance on the collar that protrudes beyond the end of your garment

22

23 Finish attaching your collar to your top. Now, flipping to the right side of your garment, you re going to fold the collar down on itself. This might feel a little strange, as you ll be turning the collar inside out, but don t worry it will all work out well in the end! Fold the collar down on itself mathcing up the bottom edges at the protruding ends as perfectly as possible Pun the ends together. You are going to sew a short line of straight stitch that sits just - JUST - outside the line made by the hemmed edge of your front pieces. The fingers in the photo at the top right are indicating this line! If the stitching hits the garment - the magenta fabric here - this will become a bit messy, so you need to make sure the stitching hits air when it gets to the level of the magenta fabric. If you want to sew small loops of ribbin or cord into the end of your collar, which can be fastened to buttons later, now is the time to slip them in, facing inwards into your collar. Pin them so their ends cross the line you ll be stitching. See illustration top right. 39 Sew this short line at both ends of the collar then trim off the excess. You ve made a ort of very long pocket. You need to now turn this pocket inside out, so that the unattached long edge of the collar sits on the inside of your garment. Pin the long folded edge so that it just covers the seam on the inside. The crease you ironed along the top of the collar should help you get it sitting in the right place. You can either hand sew this down now, so that not stitching is visible on the outside, or you can throw caution to the wind and machine it. If you decide to use your machine, sew from the right side of the garment so you can concentrate on making these stitches neat.

24 You need to hem the ends of your sleeves and the bottom edge of your garment. Try your garment on and check your sleeves are the right length. If they are too long, trim a bit off. Turn the sleeves inside out. Turn about 1cm of the wrist edge back on itselfr and iron the fold, then turn it back on itself again, hiding the raw edge. Sew the fold down with a line of straight stitch running close to the edge of the fold. You need to insert your sewing machine arm into your sleeve to do this. Your sleeve end will swivel around your machine arm as you sew. If you are adding a button onto your top, try it on and position the corners of the front pieces wherever you would like them to sit. Make a mark with chalk or a pin indicating where you need to put your button. then take the top off and handstitch the buttons into place.. See the photo at the top right of this spread as an example. We whacked some pom pom trim on to our wrap top with straight stitch. We layed it right on top of the seam where the collar piece meets the main garment. You have made a wrap top! 41 42