(upbeat funky music)
- There is a trend currently
blowing up in the fashion world,
the fashion world obviously being Fashionalia,
a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A,
and that trend is shirring!
Brands such as Reformation are, I believe,
the ones that kicked off this trend...
I mean, of course after the Squigbobgs from Fashionalia
made it fashionable about 2000 light years ago -
but here on Earth, some quick Google searching
has shown me that this fashion trend is now all over.
It's all over huge fashion houses like Asos
and Urban Outfitters, Boohoo,
along with other cheap, exploitative fast fashion brands
that I don't like to mention here on this channel.
Luckily, it is a really easy top to either make from scratch
or upcycle for ourselves, so let's get started.
So this is the thrifted top that I'm going
to be flipping into this new style.
Oh whoops, I wore shorts that have
the exact same blue gingham pattern on them as the top.
How did I not realize that before?
That's super confusing, I apologize.
Anyway, this top that I thrifted for 300 yen
is last season's old, oversized off-shoulder top.
At least, I think it was originally an off-shoulder top,
but I guess it could also be worn like this.
I'm not entirely sure,
but it actually had some shirring of it's own on it,
just not in the spot we want.
Anyway, what's important about this
is that it's oversized for my body,
meaning that we have a good amount
of fabric to work with here.
If I were to guess, I would say
the bust measurement of this shirt would probably be
about 1.5 times my bust measurement.
We need extra fabric for shirring,
so having about this amount extra is good.
The first thing I'm gonna do is remove the arms,
except, instead of just quickly cutting them off,
I'm gonna take my time and use a seam ripper, AKA unpicker,
to unpick the stitches holding the sleeve together
to the bodice.
That way I'll get a much nicer, cleaner...
(shirt rips)
Oops.
Okay, turns out I don't have the patience for unpicking.
Scissors it is!
So I cut off the two sleeves along the seam line
and I put them aside for the moment.
We'll need them later, but not right now.
Now what I'm gonna do is turn what's remaining of the top
into essentially one long rectangle of fabric.
To do that, I'm cutting off the top part here
that curves inwards on the front and the back
and then, flipping the fabric to its side,
I'm gonna cut straight down this side seam here
to open up the loop of fabric.
(upbeat funky music)
And then finally, I'm going to cut off this curved edge
down the bottom.
Now I have a long piece of fabric
that's approximately 1.5 times my bust measurement.
Wait, hang on.
I really have to change out of
these matching blue gingham shorts,
or this is gonna get super confusing.
Now I have a long piece of fabric
that's approximately 1.5 times my bust measurement
when I wrap it around myself like this.
Now, we essentially have a fabric rectangle,
but it's not an exact rectangle
because it actually curves a little.
Due to how the original top was sewn,
it has a little bit more fabric up top for the bust,
but I'm going to work with this,
and just make sure that I keep
the part with the extra fabric up the top,
because my bust measurement is bigger than my waist.
Anyway, you can just make this top
with a regular rectangle of fabric
that's approximately 1.5 times your bust measurement
and whatever length you want,
plus two inches for hemming allowance,
but I'm gonna try and work with this wonky rectangle.
Next, over at my sewing machine,
I'm going to sew a double-hem on both the long edges
at the top and the bottom of the rectangle.
To do a double hem along a straight raw edge of fabric,
fold it over once, iron, then fold it again, iron,
and then sew across like this.
Both times I folded the hem over,
I folded it about half an inch.
So, after doing that, here's my super long, wonky rectangle.
Next, we are going to shirr this rectangle
to make the shirred bodice piece.
Now, I just uploaded a companion video to this one
called "How To Shirr",
so if you don't know how to shirr fabric,
give that a watch first.
Click the I or find the link in the description box.
Watched it?
Great.
Now that we all know how to shirr fabric,
what I'm gonna do is shirr this rectangle piece like this
in rows spaced about half an inch apart,
which I actually measured on my fabric
to be about five squares of gingham
using the gingham as the fabric zone, inbuilt ruler.
I don't have to draw lines on my fabric.
So with elastic wound in my bobbin, I started shirring away.
This took about an hour or so, and once I got half-way,
the now-elasticated fabric became quite strong,
and had a lot of tension when trying to pull it flat,
so I actually had to use both of my hands
to pull the fabric flat while I went.
This was a little bit difficult.
Word from the wise, make sure to give your hands
and wrists occasional breaks while doing this,
or you could seriously get a repetitive strain injury.
Don't say I didn't warn you!
Side note, while shirring,
I didn't shirr right up to the edges of my fabric.
Once I was about half an inch away
from the edge of the fabric,
I turned around to start the new line.
This just makes it easier to sew the seams,
when we eventually sew it into a tube,
because it'll mean the fabric
will be a bit flatter at the ends.
And, an hour later, I am finally done shirring!
So now I've got this newly stretchy fabric,
which is what shirring does.
Pretty cool, right?
Next, I gave the fabric an iron.
Now, a lot of sites I looked at regarding shirring
said don't put your iron directly onto the fabric,
just hold it above the fabric and steam it,
but it was totally fine
when I ironed the shirred fabric normally touching it,
also using a lot of steam.
Then, I folded this piece of fabric
right sides together in half like this,
and clipped the raw ends into place.
Next, I'm going to sew down here with a straight stitch
to turn this into a shirred tube!
(upbeat funky music)
Then, I changed presser feet on my sewing machine
from a regular foot to an over locking foot
and went over the raw edges of the seam using that,
which I did so that the fabric at the seams wouldn't fray.
However, you can finish the seam
using whatever seam finishing method you want.
This is what my seam looked like
after using my over locking foot on it,
and that's the bodice done.
Now, back to the sleeves!
So here's the plan;
I am going to elasticize the top of the sleeves,
and then attach them to the bodice.
Because of the shape of the tops of the sleeves,
when worn on the body, by doing this,
I should get a square neckline, fingers crossed.
First, I'm going to make both sleeves the same length,
shortening them slightly.
This is because the original top
had a bit of shirring around its neckline
which extended onto the sleeves,
so I'm going to get rid of that.
With the sleeve folded like this
and with the tip of the shoulder up here
and sleeve's seam down here,
I angled a ruler on top of the sleeve,
kinda trying to get it the same angle
as the original top edge of the sleeve.
Then I cut this part off with my rotary cutter
which had become rather blunt,
which is why I'm going back and forth on the fabric here
like it's a really thick pizza.
This isn't how you're meant to use these things,
I just forgot to bring any more
fresh blades with me to Tokyo.
By the way, I'll be repeating all these steps
on the other sleeve identically,
so that I end up with two matching sleeves,
so just remember you gotta repeat all this
on the other sleeve.
Anyway, because of the angle of my cut,
the very top of the sleeve ended up a little bit too pointy,
so I'm also just gonna round that out
with my rotary cutter as well.
Next, I am going to over lock the raw edges
of each sleeve all the way around their openings.
Because I didn't have an over locker with me in Tokyo,
this over locking foot was really useful.
If you don't have an over locker, AKA serger,
or an over locking foot,
then you can use a short zigzag stitch over the raw edges.
That will also prevent fraying,
or you can go around the edges with pinking shears.
Then I turned this sleeve the right way around.
The next thing I'm gonna do is create a casing for elastic
that'll go around the very top of the sleeve.
So, this is my elastic, it's about half an inch wide.
I need to make sure the casing
will be a little bit wider than the elastic,
so that the elastic will slide through the casing nicely.
Important to note, the casing needs a small gap
of about two inches to allow the elastic
to be inserted into it,
so don't sew all the way around.
To make the casing, I folded the edge of the fabric
inside the sleeve a little bit more
than the width of the elastic,
kind of like I'm doing a hem,
and then I carefully sewed it into place,
with my needle going through the fabric just on its edge
because we want to leave plenty of room for the elastic.
Now, because the edge of this fabric is curved,
this is a little bit tricky.
You do actually have to fold the fabric,
kind of pleating it with your hand,
just before it goes under the presser foot,
in a lot of places,
to keep the casing even all the way around.
Mine ended up looking something like this when I was done.
See the pleats here around the top edge of the sleeve?
The elastic will easily be able to get through,
as long as the casing is wide enough all around,
so the pleats are not a concern.
And you won't be able to see the pleats
once the elastic is inside it as it'll bunch it up anyway.
Next, I put a safety pin through the end of my elastic.
I haven't cut any of the elastic to the right length yet,
that'll come later.
For now, the rest of the elastic is still attached.
Holding onto the safety pin,
I used it to thread the elastic through the casing,
going through the small gap first.
I pulled through a kind of random amount,
then I tried it on, inside out, on my shoulder like this.
To get the elastic the right length,
I pulled the elastic ends
until it felt comfortable around my arm.
Make sure not to pull it or secure it too tightly
as you might cut off your circulation if you do that.
Make sure that the elastic is tight enough
so the sleeve will stay on your shoulder,
but also that it has enough ease
to be able to lift it off like this.
When the elastic was at the right length,
I put the safety pin through both elastic ends
to hold this length in place,
and then I cut the excess elastic off.
Then I sewed the two ends of elastic together,
making sure they weren't twisted
inside the sleeve casing first.
I attached the elastic ends
by going over them with a zigzag stitch,
forwards and backwards a couple of times.
(upbeat funky music)
I pulled the elastic back into the sleeve
and then sewed the casing closed,
using a straight stitch over the gap.
Turning it right sides out,
this sleeve is now ready to be attached to the bodice.
I repeated this for the other sleeve.
Now let's go and find the bodice.
So here I've already attached first sleeve
to the bodice as you can see,
because I wanted to make sure that I'd do it right!
Looks pretty good!
Now I'll show you how to attach a sleeve
by attaching the other one.
Okay, the sleeve from the original top
has a seam running down it.
That seam, like most sleeve seams you'll encounter
is placed along the center bottom of the sleeve.
I matched up this sleeve seam with the seam on the bodice,
which is where I sewed the bodice up into a tube.
The other sleeve gets attached
directly opposite to the seam.
So what I'm going to do,
changing camera angles here to make it easier to see,
is line up the two seams,
so that the sleeve seam is on top of the bodice one,
right-sides together.
The sleeve, at the point of its seam
is going to get attached about two inches down
from the top edge of the bodice.
So, I'm just going to pin that in place,
with the pin holding the two pieces together
at their matching seams.
Then I gently stretched the other side of the sleeve,
until it lay flat, and pinned it here,
onto the bodice, on the bodice's top edge.
Then I did the same for the other side,
pulling it flat and pinning it onto the top edge,
the same distance, so that it's pinned on symmetrically.
The distance that I pinned them is just eye-balled,
but once it's pinned in place,
you can see pretty much how it'll look once sewn on,
and that looks good!
Time to sew the sleeve in place.
To sew it on, I used a straight stitch
and carefully sewed along the top edge of the sleeve,
sewing over the elastic in the casing underneath.
(upbeat funky music)
I then tried it on to make sure that it fit,
and that I didn't need to open up the casing
and add or subtract any elastic,
which is actually something I had to do
for the first sleeve, but this one is perfect!
Happy dance time!
So last thing to do,
I just want to cut off that excess bit of fabric
from the seam there,
which I did just with a regular pair of fabric scissors.
(upbeat funky music)
And then I went over this cut raw edge
with my over locking foot.
(upbeat funky music)
And I am done!
Now it's time to see the results!
How did it turn out?
(calm funky music)
Well dang, that turned out really well!
Here's the before and after of this up-cycle.
I just really, really like how this turned out
and I'm obsessed with shirring now.
I want to shirr all the things.
Shirring is a really good way to make fitted clothing
without needing exact measurements which I'm all for,
because accurate darts and super precise measuring
still scares me a little bit.
(scissors snip, zipper zips)
Also, if you wanted to know
how to make these sleeves from scratch,
I'm actually working on a from scratch dress right now
out of this old bed sheet,
and I want to create the same style of neckline and sleeves
that I did for the blue top
but with making a pattern from scratch,
so keep an eye out for that video which will,
fingers crossed, go live sometime next month.
Thank you all so much for watching,
make sure to give this video a thumbs up
so that YouTube algorithm actually shows this video
to the subscribers of this channel.
Stay crafty and I'll see you all next time.
Bye.
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