Hello Beauties! It’s Friday and a start to the new month! Yay! I encourage you to make it a good one by doing something you love, today and everyday! For me that something is SEWING! You guessed it, lol. 😉 I’m here with a super FUN and super QUICK tutorial for you all on the BARE SHOULDER TOP I posted last week. This time in a beautiful floral print perfect for summer!

If you’re a beginner or have never sewn before this project is actually perfect for you! You’ll get into taking easy measurement’s on yourself and a few tools that will be crucial throughout your sewing days! I encourage you to give it a try! If you get stuck somewhere just leave me a comment on the post and I’ll do my best to further walk your through! Also if this type of shirt isn’t something you’d normally sew for yourself? Who knows maybe you have a niece or a cousin, granddaughter, sister etc. that might like it as a gift! 🙂 I have another tutorial planned for you all in a few weeks, slightly similar to this one! Give this one a try so you’ll be prepared for the next one! XOXO.

💖 SHOP MY PATTERNS: ROSYPENAPATTERNS.COM 💖

Hashtag your makes on INSTAGRAM #ROSYPENA so I can see all your tops!

P.S. – I may not be back to post again until after my trip to LA next week! I’ll have picture re-cap’s of the entire trip, and a full blog post about it! I’m super excited, if anyone has any recommendations or pointers on LA festivities let me know I’d love to hear. I’m most excited to see the Fashion District! Fabrics galore! 🙂

Supplies:

1. 1-2 yards of lightweight knit fabric
2. Sewing pins
3. Tape measure
4. Ruler
5. 1/4″ elastic
6. Seam Gauge
7. Pattern weights
8. Seam ripper
9. Coordinating thread
10. Safety pin
11. Calculator
12. Rotary cutter and mat or fabric scissors (whichever you prefer)
13. Sharpie or marker
14. Paper to draft our pattern, I use freezer paper. (you can use gift wrap paper, parcel paper, any kind of scrap paper that you have available will do, newspaper etc.)
15. Self drafted pattern (explained below)

Measurements:  Overview: Write the measurements of your own body down, then grab your calculator.

1. Measure around upper bust (under your armpits around you body, above the bust, ex. my upper bust is 33″)
2. Measure from your under arm down to wherever you want the bottom of your shirt to end. ex. my measurement for this top was 15″ long. 
3. Measure around upper arm (this can be a little fiddly to measure on yourself ask someone to help if possible, if not don’t worry, we just need a rough number. Go from under your armpit around the upper arm. ex. around my upper arm is 11″)

Drafting:

Main Pattern Piece

1. Take the first measurement and add 15″ to it then divide by two. (ex. my first number was 33″ + 15 = 48, / 2 = 24. Use that calculation with your measurements and that is your number to draft the first line of our rectangle. (see 24″ line below) SO, your upper bust + 15″ divided by 2.
2.  Take the second measurement (length of the top) and draw from the first line down, my length was 15″ (see 15″ line below).
3.  Finish off your rectangle like shown. Your first measurement again on the bottom, and your length of the top on the other side.

Sleeve Pattern Piece

1. Take the measurement from around your arm and add 5″ to that (ex. my measurement was 11″ + 5 = 16. Just like before create a line for your rectangle using YOUR measurement.
2. The length of my sleeve is 9″ this will create a short sleeve version, if you want a longer sleeve simply add more length.  Use the 9″ (or whatever length you wish) to finish of your rectangle for your sleeve pattern piece.

Perfect! Now that we’ve drafted our pattern pieces we can get on to the fun parts! Cutting and sewing! Place your fabric right sides together and put your pattern pieces onto your fabric using your pattern weights to keep things down. Cut around. You want to end up with 4 pieces for your sleeve, and 2 pieces of your main pattern. So make sure to cut out your sleeve pattern another time with your fabric right sides together to end up with 4 total.

Pin your main pieces right sides together along the LENGTH (for me that was the 15″) and pin each two of your sleeves right sides together along the 9″ sides (or the length your chose). Like below.

After you’ve pinned, sew down each pinned side of both your main pieces and your sleeves, using a 1/2″ seam allowance and a regular length stitch.

I used white thread. Stitching line below.

Now press open your seams and press up 1/2″ hem on each of your open edges, using your seam gauge to measure.

Like below. All open edges are pressed in 1/2″ to the wrong side .

Closer image of pressed edges below.

Now take your pieces to your sewing machine and sew very close to the raw edge of your pressed hem. On one open edge you are going to sew COMPLETELY around. On the other open edge you are going to leave about a 1″ OPENING. This is where we are going to insert our elastic. Do that to each piece, so one sleeve will have a fully sewn hem on one open edge and one open end will have a 1″ opening. Same for the other sleeve and same for the main body piece.

Once you’ve finished with that, cut 1 piece of elastic your upper bust measurement (for me it was 33″) MINUS 2″. So I cut 1 elastic 31″ long. Cut 2 elastics your upper arm measurement minus 1″ so I cut 2 elastics 10″.

 

Here’s a closer image of the opening I left at the seam, about 1  and 1/2″ wide.

Insert your coordinating elastic pieces through the openings we left using your safety pin to hook onto one end of the elastic then fish it through the inside of the fabric. Once you’ve fished your elastic in through your fabric, overlap the ends and sew it together with a zig zag stitch. Like below. After you’ve sewn your elastic ends SECURELY together (I like to go over it several times to make sure it’s not going anywhere) now you can sew your fabric opening shut! Just sew close to your raw edge like before starting at the end of your previous stitching making sure to back stitch at the beginning and end. When you completed the steps for all of your piece you should end up with something like below! Two pieces for your sleeves and one main piece to go around your body. Take one seam of a sleeve and line it up with a seam of your main body piece right sides together, pin in place. Closer image below. Fabric pinned in place at the seam of the sleeve and seam of main body piece.

Sew through all thickness within the seam tacking down with a few stitches. The goal here is to attach the sleeve to the main body piece.

Sleeve stitched to main piece below. Stitches are kept within the seam as shown. Repeat to other side seam and sleeve seam. Okay, guess what? You’re all DONE! So easy and so CUTE right???! I love this top! I hope you all enjoyed the tutorial! Go OUT and ROCK your stuff! XOXO – ROSY. Hashtag your makes on social media with #ROSYPENA so I can see your shirts! Love you all.

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