Adding an inset to any bodice pattern

I have a simple tutorial for you. It looks a lot more complicated than it actually is. Seriously, you'll just be adding two more seams than usual to make this look. You can do a sheer overlay or a solid color. If you have a bodice pattern, you can make this look.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I LOVE to take patterns and change them around a bit to get a look that’s different from the original. It’s easier than you might think. Today, I’ll show you how to make a sheer inset and overlay on any bodice you already have. You just need a scrap of sheer fabric, so you can raid your stash. It would be fun to make this with a contrasting panel too.


Have your favorite bodice? Good, we can start! We’re going to draw a line down it and cut it so you might want to use a copy. Here we go!

I like to use my drafting ruler here. I LOVE this thing. You’ve probably seen me bust it out before. If you plan to do a lot of pattern modification, you’ll probably want to get one but don’t be discouraged if you don’t have one in your artillery yet. You can just eyeball this curve. Really, you can. It’s not going to change the fit of your top at all – it’s all aesthetic. Just draw a curved line from the shoulder down pattern until the like the look of it. You can see where I did mine.

Now, cut it apart along the line you drew. Take your two new pieces and trace them out on another piece of paper. Add seam allowance along the lines you cut.


Okay, easy as pie! Now, go cut out your pieces. You’ll want to cut the piece that says “fold” along the fold as it states (Cut one in the main fabric and one in your sheer fabric. I’ve used a black lace). You’ll cut two of the other piece (main fabric) making sure you cut a mirror image.

Here’s how I laid my pattern pieces out. I already cut out my lace piece and I set it there to show you what it looks like cut out.

Lay your sheer piece over it’s matching main fabric piece like so. You’ll want to baste these two together. Really, you do. It will save you tons of headache later. Believe me.

Now, take your side piece and pin it to your center piece, right sides together. It’s not going to look like it will match, but keep pinning and it will come into place. I use a LOT of pins. (You can see my basting stitches!). Keep on pinning and then go sew. Repeat for the other side.

Now, go iron the snot out of this thing. Iron it until it cries. I pressed my seams toward the sides. The curves seem to fall best that way. A hot iron is your friend here. Don’t skip this step or these curves won’t play nicely when it’s being worn. I know. Don’t ask.


Now, you have a bodice front piece that matches the original pattern piece. You sew with this just like you would if you’d cut the original pattern piece out. Follow the directions in your pattern to construct the rest of your top or dress.


I used the hanami pattern which calls for a lining. If you have to cut a lining, you don’t need to make a panel on the lining as well. Just cut out the original bodice pattern piece (If you’ve cut it, just tape it back together).

To complete my look I sewed on an exposed zipper and lined my sleeves with the same lace I used for the inset. Everything was sewn according to my pattern’s directions, I just took the time to change up the look of the bodice a little bit.

This is a fun technique to add a little bit of color blocking to existing patterns too. Just sew in a contrasting color in regular cotton instead of a layered sheer fabric. The combinations are endless!

Tulip Sleeve Jacket Tutorial

Previously, I'd posted this tutorial over at The Sewing Rabbit. I will show you how to draft your own tulip sleeved jacket from any existing bodice pattern you already have. You can use the info on making a tulip sleeve for anything you'd like from dresses to jackets.  I’ll show you how to make the rest of this cute jacket too while I’m at it. You can use any pattern in your stash that has a basic bodice and an inset short sleeve. Go grab your favorite. I used the bodice and short sleeve from five and ten designs. I sized up to give it more room so that it can be worn over tops. If your bodice pattern if pretty fitted, you’ll want to size up as well.

Here we go!

You can do this with a woman's pattern too and it would be so pretty over your summer dresses.

What you’ll need

Fabric for outside and lining fabric
Basic bodice pattern and sleeve pattern
Ruler
Paper
Pencil, marker or favorite writing utensil
Button



Alright, now that you have your pattern, put it on a piece of paper and trace it.

Next, flip it over and trace the other side so that you have a whole sleeve traced out.

Draw a line from the bottom corner to the opposite corner. This will be a guide for the next step. I used a lighter color pencil, but you don’t have to. Use what you have.

Using the bottom corner line as a guide, draw curved shape from about 1/3 of the way in to the bottom corner. I cheated and used my french curve ruler, but you can eyeball it just as easily. Just make it look something like this. You don’t have to be precise here. The curve you draw, will be the curve of your tulip overlap on your sleeve. You want it to be straighter at the bottom and more curved at the top but don’t worry too much.

Alright! Now, you cut it out. It will look like a petal. The straight side will be cut on the fold of your fabric, so mark it accordingly. Make sure to mark the size of your new pattern piece too.

Now, take your bodice front pattern, trace around it and add 1 inch to the center.

Decide how wide you want your button overlap to be. Mine was about 2 inches, so I measured down 2.5 inches (I added .5 inches for seam allowance). From that point, draw a curve down to the bottom of your pattern piece. I didn’t like the first curve I draw, so I did a second one. You can use a french curve ruler or you can eyeball it. When you’re done, cut out your new pattern piece, marking it correctly so you know what it is later.

Once you have your pattern pieces cut out, take them over to your fabric and cut out all your pieces. You should have 3 pattern pieces, the 2 you just made and you’ll use an unaltered bodice back piece that was paired with your bodice front from the original pattern.
4 front pieces – 2 outer and 2 lining
2 back pieces – 1 outer and 1 lining
2 sleeves

Once you cut your pieces, sew your fronts and backs together along the tops and the sides. You’ll have two unfinished bodices-one in your outer fabric and one in your lining. Put these two bodices, right sides together and sew them together along the outside leaving the armholes unsewn. Don’t forget to leave a space in the bottom to turn your pieces.

Okay, turn your pieces and then sew your bottom closed and topstitch the entire thing. It should look like a sleeveless jacket at this point. Next up, baste your arms together.

Hem your sleeves. Make sure you hem the right end. The straightest edge is the bottom.

Fold your sleeve in half, wrong sides together, to find the center. Place this fold on the seam line of the side of your bodice(right sides together). This will ensure that both sleeves are positioned the same on your top and look the same once they’re sewn on. Start pinning. Go toward the back of your bodice first if you want your tulip in the front. Go toward the front first if you want the tulip in the back. Mine was pinned back first, then front.

Pin all the way around. You’ll get to a point where your sleeve looks like this. It’s supposed to. Don’t panic! just keep lining up your sleeve, pulling your pins out and repinning all the layers together as you go along (aren’t you glad you basted earlier?!). Once you have all of your edges lined up and approximately 800 pins in place, take it to your machine and sew that puppy on!!

Turn right side out and check for puckers in your bodice. Make sure your sleeves look right. Use your seam ripper if you have any flaws. Inevitably, I always sew one sleeve on backwards so that I have one overlap at the front and one at the back. EVERY TIME!

Position your button where you want it and sew on your button hole and DONE!

Dance, holler, and cavort! Then, go take pictures of your cutie in her jacket.

Easy Belt Tutorial

I wrote this post for The Sewing Rabbit originally, but I'm posting it here now for your enjoyment.  This is such an easy and quick little belt to put together, you can whip up in under 10 minutes.  I did all three in about 30, and that included the embellishments!

If your daughter is anything like mine, she loves accessories.  Miss has been carrying purses around she could walk.  It’s been close to 4 years now!  She also hasn’t been able to keep her pants up since she’s started walking, so I devised a plan that could be both fashionable and functional.  Crazy, I know!What’s really fun about this is how versatile and quick they are.  You can whip these puppies out in under 10 minutes!  Your daughter can help.  Miss and I will show you how to make this little bit of waist bling.

What you’ll need.

• 2 1 inch D rings
• ribbon about 1 inch wide (just make sure it fits inside your D rings)
• ric rac or other embelishments
• hot glue gun or fabric glue
• thread

To start with, measure your child’s waist.  I’ve found that what works best is to add 10 inches to that measurement, double it and then cut that amount from your ribbon.  That way your ribbon is doubled the entire length of the belt.  This is easy to do if your daughter has an itty bitty 19 inch waist but, if your daughter is 6 and has a bigger waist, or your working with scrap ribbon, make sure you have enough ribbon to go around the waist and at least 12 inches of extra.  Ok, now that we’ve done our math, let’s cut our ribbon!

Apply fray check to the ends of the ribbon or heat seal the ends to keep them from unraveling.

Thread the ribbon through both D rings.  Pin your ribbon as close to the rings as you can get to keep the rings from sliding around.  You can keep pinning the length of the ribbon if you’d like.  Some ribbon can get slippery.  It’s totally up to you.

For this next part, I put on my zipper foot.  You don’t have to use one if you don’t have one but the closer you can get to the D rings, the less they’ll slip around.  Now, sew down the width of your ribbon a couple of times, being sure to anchor the beginning and ending of your stitches.  Because the D rings are thick, you won’t be able to pivot and keep sewing, so you want to make sure this stitching doesn’t come undone.

Next, turn your belt and put the presser foot down as close to rings as you can get.  Sew down the length of your ribbon.  Turn where the second layer ends and sew the width, turn again, and sew back up the other side as close as you can get to the rings.  Again, make sure you anchor your stitches.

Now, thread your belt through and admire your handiwork!  Isn’t it lovely?  Isn’t it beautiful?  It’s super cute as it is, but we can kick it up a notch.

Pull out your rick rack and make a rose with it.  My daughter helped me.  You just start at one end and start rolling it until it’s the size you want.  Super easy.

When you get it the size you want it, pin it to keep it from unraveling and trim the excess off.  You can either use thread to sew through the whole thing a few times or you can glue a felt circle to the bottom.  I had some felt flowers so that’s what I glued to the bottom of mine.  Now, you can glue it to the front of your belt, making your cute belt even cuter!

I made three of these.  I like using grosgrain ribbon the best.  Satin ribbon tends to pucker.  They’re all very, very cute.  Miss decided to show you how she and her friends like to style them.

And these do work to keep pants up too, but it’s much more fun to wear them this way.  All three of them said so.

Easy Heart Skirt Tutorial

Do you need a quick themed skirt for a holiday or event?  I have a very simple tutorial for you today.  You can add this to any any existing skirt or whip up a simple elastic waist skirt.  I won’t do a tutorial for making the skirt itself since there are a lot of great ones out there (like this one), but I will show you how to add these cute felt heart embellishments but you use any shapes you'd like.  Shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day.  Bunnies or easter eggs for Easter.  Maybe balloons for a birthday.  Have fun with it.  If this looks familiar, it's because it was originally written for Sewing Rabbit but I'm bringing it home today.

Materials:

• Skirt
• Several colors of felt.  I used red, dark pink, bright pink and white.
• Scissors
• Sewing Machine
• Thread

You could hand sew these as well, but a sewing machine makes it go much faster.

Start off by drawing some heart templates on paper in three different sizes.  Stack them up until you like their sizes relative to each other.  It sounds complicated but just play it by ear and have fun with it.  These are what mine looked like when I was happy with them.

Next, trace them out on your sheets of felt.  I traced 3 of each size in each color just to make sure I’d have plenty.  There is no set amount that you’ll want.  It depends on the size of your hearts, the size of your skirt and how many hearts you want on your skirt when you’re done.  Felt is cheap, cut as many as you want.  If you have too many at the end, you can use them as embellishments on something else later.  My daughter made some cards for her brothers out of some of our leftovers.

I used a dark sharpie to trace these so that they’d show up for the photos, but I’d suggest using a color that closely matches your felt.  That way, it won’t show up on your final project.  You don’t finish the edges and some of my hearts look a little too “homemade” for my taste with their dark sharpie edges, if you know what I mean.

After you cut out all of our hearts comes the fun part.  Stack them all up and make them pretty!  Play with your color combinations until you think they look good and have the variety you’re going for.  My daughter had SO MUCH fun helping me do this part.  She painstakingly arranged and rearranged these hearts until they were just right.  Look at all of those pretty stacks!

Pin them onto your skirt in whatever configuration pleases you.  I liked mine a bit asymmetrical and clustered them toward the left of the seams.  When pinning, keep the center of the heart clear because that is where you’ll sew them down.  I found that two pins was plenty to keep them in place.

Now, start sewing.  I had a two layer skirt, so I sewed these starting at the tip, but you’ll get a better point if you start at the top of your heart and sew toward the tip.  Because of the construction of my skirt, though, this was a whole lot easier for me.

Don’t forget to anchor your stitches with a backstitch at the top and bottom.  Go around your whole skirt and sew them all on.

The last step is to fold all of your hearts along the seam to make them stand out a bit, but you can keep them flat if you’d like.  It’s up to you.

DONE!  Easy!

• Fabric - Shot cotton by Kaffe Fasset in Latte
• Felt - Walmart craft felt
• Pattern - Self drafted