Hello! Welcome back to a brand new episode of Make Thrift Buy! And I am SO happy to be
sitting right here making a video again, because I’ve been really sick for the past month
thanks to my chronic illness, and it's just been so good for the past few days to have
a bit more energy to sew again. I don’t know how long it’s going to last, hopefully
I'm on the mend but – I’m back for this video at least! And I just want to thank all
of the people who have been giving me love and support on instagram - it’s really helped
me get through some tough days. Anyway, ONTO THE PROJECT FOR TODAY!
Oh yeah – and just in case you’re new here, Make Thrift Buy is a series where you
guys send in clothes that you’ve found online, from chain stores and wholesalers and expensive
designers, and then I try and recreate them and show you all how to do it in the process.
Now, Jaelyne Grace, Chloe Underwood wanted me to try and recreate this ringer-style t-shirt
with an alien patch on it from Brandy Melville – which now appears to be gone forever from
their website – and copied throughout the cheap fast-fashion world – but never fear!
Because today we’re going to try and make this for ourselves. So, let’s go!
First I’m going to show you how to make a t-shirt from scratch, but if you just want
to learn how to make a patch then skip forward through the video to part 2.
Okay so, first I grabbed myself a top that I like the fit and style of.
And you guys know me - I love my crop tops!
SO, to make the t-shirt, first I layed down some stretchy grey jersey, folded over like
this, with the stretch running in this direction.
Next, I grabbed the t-shirt that I’m going to copy, and I folded it in half so that the
front neckline was on the outside, and then I matched up the folded edge of the shirt
with the folded edge of the fabric. Now it doesn’t matter if the sleeve is running
off the edge of the fabric here, because I wasn’t tracing around that part yet – First,
I was just going to be tracing around THIS bodice section.
I started out trying to trace around the shirt with chalk, but that didn’t work out so
well because I couldn’t see the chalk lines on the grey fabric – so I switched to a
permanent marker. Now this isn’t the best idea for tracing onto fabric because you can’t
exactly rub out a permanent marker’s lines if you make a mistake. So - just be careful
if you also go down this route.
So, I traced around the bottom of the shirt – making the line straight because it was
curved for some reason – and added a little bit for hemming allowance. I also traced down
the side from the armhole, and the shoulder, which is from the neckline to where the sleeve
begins. Which gave me these three lines. Now I just needed to connect them with a neckline
and armhole line. This is a little bit trickier to trace. To
trace out the front neckline, I put my finger on top of the neckline, folded the fabric
back to where my finger is, and then I made a mark with my pen. I did this at both edges
of the neckline first, and then I worked my way in. And then when I had a few marks like
this, I basically just connected the dots and joined this curve up. And there we go,
there’s the neckline! Then I did the exact same thing for the armhole curve, putting
my finger on top of the sleeve seam, and making little marks with my pen, and then joining
these marks up.
And there we have it, the front bodice-piece for the t-shirt! Then I simply had to cut
this out, cutting through both layers of fabric, which unfolded looks like this.
Then, I did the exact same thing to copy the back of the t-shirt, except that I folded
it the other way so that the back neckline is on the outside, and I traced out the back
neckline instead.
So, these are my front and back pieces.
Now I needed to make sleeves.
To copy the sleeves of my original t-shirt, I folded the fabric over once with the stretch
running in this direction, and I placed the top of the sleeve down onto the fold like
this. Next, making sure that the sleeve was laying totally flat on the fabric, I traced
around the sleeve like this. Similar to tracing around the shirt, the bottom
and sides of the sleeve are easy to trace around, and I also added a small seam-allowance
at the bottom of the sleeve. Then, to trace around the more difficult armhole
seam, I again used this method where I placed a finger on top of the seam that joins the
sleeve, folded back the t-shirt, made small marks with my pen, and then joined these marks
up into a nice curve. So, this is my sleeve, which I then cut out
and then copied directly onto some more fabric in order to give me TWO sleeves.
And now it’s time to sew everything together! First I placed the front and back pieces together
and I sewed them together at the shoulders like this.
Then, I lay the shirt out like this with the right sides facing up, and I am going to attach
one of the sleeves.
Okay now watch carefully because this is a little confusing – I put the sleeve on top
of the shirt, with the middle of the sleeve matched up with the shoulder seam. Now I need
to sew these two pieces together, but as you can see, the curve of the armhole and the
curve of the sleeve go in two VERY different directions.
But, because I am working with very stretchy fabric, I can use pins to solve this!
So, first I put a pin in the middle, matching up the middle of the sleeve to the shoulder
seam. Then I pinned the sleeve on all the way down
ONE side only. It’s easiest to do one side of each sleeve at a time, because otherwise
things will get very bunched up. So with half the sleeve pinned on, I sewed
it on to the bodice like this, using a zig-zag stitch.
And once that side is sewn on, I pinned the other half of the sleeve to the bodice and
sewed it on in the same way.
I repeated this for the other sleeve, and now I had something resembling a t-shirt.
Next, with the fabrics facing right-sides together, I’m going to sew the arms and
the sides together like this.
Things will work out best if you first sew from the underarm to the end of the sleeve,
and then from the underarm down the side of the shirt.
Now I have a t-shirt with raw edges, and I’m going to finish it off by adding the contrasting
neckline and armhole bindings.
So to figure out how much material I would need for the neckline binding, I measured
the circumference of the neckhole which came out at 24 inches. I then took 4 inches off
this measurement.
Next, I cut out a strip of black jersey fabric which is what I'm going to be using for my
contrasting binding. This strip is 20 inches long. I was able to take away 4 inches from
the neckhole measurement because this fabric was extremely stretchy, but you will have
to adjust this depending on the stretch of your fabrics.
A good test to make sure that you have cut a long-enough strip of fabric is to fold this
strip in half, place it on the front of your neckline, and, with your fingers holding it
in place, stretching the fabric and kind of "walking” it along the neckline like this.
Next, with this strip folded in half (right sides together), I sewed down the edges.
Then, I turned it the right way around,
folded it in half length-ways,
then, I quartered it with pins.
I did the same thing with the neckline, quartering it with pins, so two
pins at each of the shoulder seams, and one in the centre back, and one in the centre
front. Now I’m going to sew these two together!
To do this, I placed the neck binding onto the machine first with the raw edges facing
THIS way. The shirt goes on next, and the binding then goes on top of the neckline,
with the raw edges matching up, and at the same time I also matched up two of the pins.
Removing these pins so I don’t sew over them, I’m going to then sew the two pieces
together, stretching the binding so that the next set of pins match up.
I’m sewing the two together with about an eight of an inch seam allowance.
I’m also using a straight stitch to sew the neckline on, because next I am going to
overlock (or, serge) the stitches, but if you don’t have an overlocker then you should
be using a zig-zag stitch at this point.
So, with the neck binding sewn on and flipped around the right way it looks like this, and
I'm also give everything a good iron to ensure that it lays flat.
Now, going to make contrasting bindings for the sleeves and I'm going to use a very similar
method. So I cut out a strip of black fabric that’s shorter than the armhole by about
2 inches, so, with the strip folded over in two it looks like this.
I then sew the strip into a loop by stitching down here, cutting off the excess fabric,
turning it around so that the seam is on the inside, folding this in half lengthways,
and then placing it over the top of the armhole, with the raw edges of both fabrics up, matching
and then I sew it on all the way around the armhole like this.
Now I’m not bothering with pins this time, I’m just stretching the black binding fabric
slightly as I sew, but if you want to be a bit more accurate then you should quarter
everything with pins just like you did for the neckline.
Then, to hem the bottom of the shirt, I folded the raw edge up inside the shirt about one
inch, pinned everything in place, and then I went over the top of the fabric with my
twin-needle, and I also used my walking foot. Hemming stretch fabrics can be difficult,
but I find that this combination with the walking foot and the twin needle stops the
fabric from ruffling. If you don’t have these attachments then you can always place
a piece of paper underneath while you sew and zig-zag stitch your way along the hem,
tearing off the paper when you’re done. AND, that’s how I make a t-shirt! And now
I can move onto part 2.
Sooo I’ve never made a patch before, and I also don’t really have any proper patch-making
materials on me, so I'm going to be honest - I’m kind of making this up as I go along.
I grabbed myself this scrap piece of plain white cotton, which I pre-ironed to make it
nice and flat. And then I drew an alien’s face onto it with a pencil, using the original
t-shirt image to help guide me.
I figured that I needed something to stabalize the patch so I grabbed some interfacing that
I already owned, and I cut out a small square of this and ironed it onto the back of the
alien drawing.
Next, with a very narrow zig-zag stitch, I went carefully around the outsides of the
alien’s head, following the pencil line as closely as possible.
And, I ended up with this! In order to stop the patch from fraying when
I eventually cut it, I’m going to add fabric glue all around the edges. So I brushed the
fabric glue on in a thin layer, both around the edges of the stitches and also a little
bit on top of the stitches, just in case I accidentally cut through any later, to stop
them unraveling. Next, I put the fabric into an embroidery
hoop and I used an embroidery needle and thread and a satin stitch to fill in the eyes.
I’ve talked about how to make a satin stitch in many other videos which I’ll link in
the description, but really quickly, you do a satin stitch by going UP at one edge of
your shape, the bringing your needle down at the OTHER edge of the shape, and then pulling
the thread through. Then, you simply push your needle up right NEXT to the spot where
your needle just went down, bring your needle over to the other side of the shape, and back
down again, and repeat this until your shape is filled in with these long stitches!
And always make sure when you’re done to flip it over to the back and tie a couple
of knots to stop the threads from coming loose.
So once I’d embroidered both the eyes, I grabbed these iron-on patches, which you should
be able to find at most craft stores.
I roughly cut out the alien’s face, and then I sewed the alien onto the iron-on patch
like this. Basically, I just used a straight stitch to
go over the top of the already-exisiting zig-zag stitch.
Then, using some sharp fabric scissors, I cut out the alien’s face by going as close
to the zig-zag stitches as possible. And, the fabric shouldn’t fray now because of
all the fabric glue that I used earlier (which, by the way, I allowed to dry before cutting
this out).
So, here’s my patch! And I’m so happy with how it turned out!
Now in order to attach it to the shirt, all I'm going to have to do is to iron it on because
the back of the patch has this heat-activated glue.
So, I layed the patch down on the appropriate spot on the shirt, covered it with some cotton
to protect it, and then following the instructions on the iron-on patch I held my iron down on
top of it for 20 seconds.
And now I'm finally done! SO, after all of that, how did the shirt turn out?
How did I go?
[music plays]
So my conclusion is: [scissor snipping sound effect].
I love how this turned out! And this was a project that had surprisingly few hiccups
for a project of mine. But if you didn't want to make an entire t-shirt from scratch, then
you could always just get a t-shirt that you liked and make your own patch and stick it
on the front. You can really make this project as easy or as difficult as you want to! And
I really want to make a bunch of other patches now and put them on cute, different-coloured,
ringer-style t-shirts. What kind of simple embroidered patches could I make? If you have
any ideas, let me know in the comments down below!
As always, thank so much for watching, thanks for sharing, liking, supporting my videos,
all of that, the kind words you leave on instagram and in the comments - anyway, I’ll see you
all in my next video, bye!
Thank you to all of my supporters on Patreon who helped to make this video possible. To
become my patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/annikavictoria.