hello! welcome back to a brand new episodeof make thrift buy! and i am so happy to be sitting right here making a video again, becausei’ve been really sick for the past month thanks to my chronic illness, and it's justbeen so good for the past few days to have a bit more energy to sew again. i don’tknow how long it’s going to last, hopefully i'm on the mend but – i’m back for thisvideo at least! and i just want to thank all
comfort colors pocket t shirts custom, of the people who have been giving me loveand 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 newhere, 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 themand show you all how to do it in the process. now, jaelyne grace, chloe underwood wantedme 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 thecheap fast-fashion world – but never fear! because today we’re going to try and makethis for ourselves. so, let’s go! first i’m going to show you how to makea t-shirt from scratch, but if you just want to learn how to make a patch then skip forwardthrough the video to part 2. okay so, first i grabbed myself a top thati 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 downsome stretchy grey jersey, folded over like this, with the stretch running in this direction. next, i grabbed the t-shirt that i’m goingto copy, and i folded it in half so that the front neckline was on the outside, and theni matched up the folded edge of the shirt with the folded edge of the fabric. now itdoesn’t matter if the sleeve is running off the edge of the fabric here, because iwasn’t tracing around that part yet – first, i was just going to be tracing around thisbodice section. i started out trying to trace around the shirtwith chalk, but that didn’t work out so well because i couldn’t see the chalk lineson the grey fabric – so i switched to a
permanent marker. now this isn’t the bestidea for tracing onto fabric because you can’t exactly rub out a permanent marker’s linesif 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 littlebit 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 fingeron top of the neckline, folded the fabric
back to where my finger is, and then i madea mark with my pen. i did this at both edges of the neckline first, and then i worked myway in. and then when i had a few marks like this, i basically just connected the dotsand joined this curve up. and there we go, there’s the neckline! then i did the exactsame thing for the armhole curve, putting my finger on top of the sleeve seam, and makinglittle marks with my pen, and then joining these marks up. and there we have it, the front bodice-piecefor 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 theback of the t-shirt, except that i folded
it the other way so that the back necklineis 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 thetop of the sleeve down onto the fold like this. next, making sure that the sleeve waslaying 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 tracearound, 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 placeda finger on top of the seam that joins the sleeve, folded back the t-shirt, made smallmarks 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 fabricin 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 shoulderslike this. then, i lay the shirt out like this with theright sides facing up, and i am going to attach one of the sleeves.
okay now watch carefully because this is alittle confusing – i put the sleeve on top of the shirt, with the middle of the sleevematched up with the shoulder seam. now i need to sew these two pieces together, but as youcan see, the curve of the armhole and the curve of the sleeve go in two very differentdirections. but, because i am working with very stretchyfabric, i can use pins to solve this! so, first i put a pin in the middle, matchingup 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 sideof 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-zagstitch. and once that side is sewn on, i pinned theother half of the sleeve to the bodice and sewed it on in the same way. i repeated this for the other sleeve, andnow i had something resembling a t-shirt. next, with the fabrics facing right-sidestogether, i’m going to sew the arms and the sides together like this. things will work out best if you first sewfrom the underarm to the end of the sleeve, and then from the underarm down the side ofthe shirt. now i have a t-shirt with raw edges, and i’mgoing to finish it off by adding the contrasting
neckline and armhole bindings. so to figure out how much material i wouldneed for the neckline binding, i measured the circumference of the neckhole which cameout at 24 inches. i then took 4 inches off this measurement. next, i cut out a strip of black jersey fabricwhich is what i'm going to be using for my contrasting binding. this strip is 20 incheslong. i was able to take away 4 inches from the neckhole measurement because this fabricwas extremely stretchy, but you will have to adjust this depending on the stretch ofyour fabrics. a good test to make sure that you have cuta long-enough strip of fabric is to fold this
strip in half, place it on the front of yourneckline, 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 (rightsides together), i sewed down the edges. then, i turned it the right way around, foldedit in half length-ways, then, i quartered it with pins. i did the same thing with theneckline, quartering it with pins, so two pins at each of the shoulder seams, and onein 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 ontothe machine first with the raw edges facing this way. the shirt goes on next, and thebinding then goes on top of the neckline, with the raw edges matching up, and at thesame time i also matched up two of the pins. removing these pins so i don’t sew overthem, i’m going to then sew the two pieces together, stretching the binding so that thenext set of pins match up. i’m sewing the two together with about aneight of an inch seam allowance. i’m also using a straight stitch to sewthe neckline on, because next i am going to overlock (or, serge) the stitches, but ifyou 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 flippedaround the right way it looks like this, and i'm also give everything a good iron to ensurethat it lays flat. now, going to make contrasting bindings forthe sleeves and i'm going to use a very similar method. so i cut out a strip of black fabricthat’s shorter than the armhole by about 2 inches, so, with the strip folded over intwo it looks like this. i then sew the strip into a loop by stitchingdown here, cutting off the excess fabric, turning it around so that the seam is on theinside, 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 aroundthe 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 abit more accurate then you should quarter everything with pins just like you did forthe neckline. then, to hem the bottom of the shirt, i foldedthe raw edge up inside the shirt about one inch, pinned everything in place, and theni 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 thewalking foot and the twin needle stops the fabric from ruffling. if you don’t havethese attachments then you can always place a piece of paper underneath while you sewand 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, andi 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 plainwhite cotton, which i pre-ironed to make it nice and flat. and then i drew an alien’sface onto it with a pencil, using the original t-shirt image to help guide me. i figured that i needed something to stabalizethe patch so i grabbed some interfacing that i already owned, and i cut out a small squareof this and ironed it onto the back of the
alien drawing. next, with a very narrow zig-zag stitch, iwent carefully around the outsides of the alien’s head, following the pencil lineas 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 fabricglue all around the edges. so i brushed the fabric glue on in a thin layer, both aroundthe edges of the stitches and also a little bit on top of the stitches, just in case iaccidentally cut through any later, to stop them unraveling.next, i put the fabric into an embroidery hoop and i used an embroidery needle and threadand a satin stitch to fill in the eyes.
i’ve talked about how to make a satin stitchin many other videos which i’ll link in the description, but really quickly, you doa satin stitch by going up at one edge of your shape, the bringing your needle downat the other edge of the shape, and then pulling the thread through. then, you simply pushyour needle up right next to the spot where your needle just went down, bring your needleover to the other side of the shape, and back down again, and repeat this until your shapeis filled in with these long stitches! and always make sure when you’re done toflip 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, igrabbed these iron-on patches, which you should
be able to find at most craft stores. i roughly cut out the alien’s face, andthen 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-zagstitch. then, using some sharp fabric scissors, icut 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 happywith how it turned out!
now in order to attach it to the shirt, alli'm going to have to do is to iron it on because the back of the patch has this heat-activatedglue. so, i layed the patch down on the appropriatespot on the shirt, covered it with some cotton to protect it, and then following the instructionson 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 soundeffect].
i love how this turned out! and this was aproject that had surprisingly few hiccups for a project of mine. but if you didn't wantto make an entire t-shirt from scratch, then you could always just get a t-shirt that youliked and make your own patch and stick it on the front. you can really make this projectas easy or as difficult as you want to! and i really want to make a bunch of other patchesnow and put them on cute, different-coloured, ringer-style t-shirts. what kind of simpleembroidered patches could i make? if you have any ideas, let me know in the comments downbelow! as always, thank so much for watching, thanksfor sharing, liking, supporting my videos,
all of that, the kind words you leave on instagramand in the comments - anyway, i’ll see you
all in my next video, bye! thank you to all of my supporters on patreonwho helped to make this video possible. to become my patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/annikavictoria.
