Woven Top Tutorial

Feeling weird since I have not actually sat down to make something in a couple of weeks, been busy trying to get my parents house into ok shape before me and E move out in January.  Still want to keep gathering ideas to keep me thinking.  As i go through the piles and piles of materials I have...hoarded for a couple years there are so many great patterns of fabrics I have that are too small to do much with.  I think if I found a solid color top like the one they used and mix the crazy pattern strips I have it would look noice brah.
 Blah blah blah here is the tutorial.


*find yourself an worn-in top.

*lay the top flat on your workspace. begin cutting from the base of the shirt to the top in 1 & 1/2 to 2 inch strips, leaving the waist band in tact. cut only to the shoulder seam and to the base of the neck. some of your strips with curve towards the shoulder seam. i worked from the side seam in, measuring towards the center in order to get semi-even strips. do not cut the side seam: that it where you’re going to attach your fabric.

*use a contrasting fabric of similar weight/stretch. i used a knit mesh in cream. you don’t need much: i used about a quarter of a yard. (you could even cut up another used/worn shirt if you’re looking to down-size your wardrobe: make 1 shirt from 2.)

*with right sides together, cut 1 & 1/2 inch strips. i cut 10 strips. depending on the size of the shirt and how tight you want it woven, you can add more or less. the fewer the strips and/or longer the strips, the more you can see through the weave.

*begin weaving the contrasting fabric strips through the top, altering every other row to create a basket weave effect. the easiest way to do this is to pin one end of the contrasting strip to the side seam of the top. weave the strip through and pin on the opposite side, cutting away any excess material.

*in order to keep strips even, pin along the shoulder seam, but keep your strips straight. (turning them will cause awkward bumps and bulges. you can turn the shirt inside out if you’re having trouble keeping things lined up and pinned.)

*once everything is pinned, sew along your side and shoulder seams. i used grey thread to match my top, so you can see where i’ve added stitches. turn your top inside out and cut off any excess material that may create bulk.
*you’re done:
note!: i wore my top once and a lot of the weave sort of collapsed down so you couldn’t see the details of it. my guess is that this happened because the knit fabric i used was very different in weight from the sweatshirt. to fix this, i hand stitched tiny X’s at various points across the weave in order to keep things in place. you could probably avoid having to hand-stitch anything if you use similar weight fabric and attach the woven material at the side seams a bit tighter than i originally did."


{Found this at Made By Rachel today}