Black and White Belted Top

Miss this week’s challenge? Click HERE

Do you ever get busy? I mean really busy? This week/weekend has been one of those. Add the stress of week one in Project Run and Play. (I barely squeaked by this week) Man oh man the weekend was a blur. Now I am trying to get myself and the two kids ready to travel across the country to spend a few weeks with my Shwin!!! and my mom. I am sooo excited! Also nervous, traveling with kids gives me an anxiety attack… So I had grand plans for this weeks challenge of the sequins feathers and fur… In my mind it was going to be great! Then I got started and it all turned to mush. So it is kind of a cop out… But in the end I still really like it. You see I LOVE color and bright colors on kids especially but I am a sucker for black and white. It is just so clean and classic, I love how this turned out so much I may just be making something like this for myself… Shall we get started?

First things first. I made cut a basic bodice piece. You can use a well fitting shirt to base as your pattern like I have done before HERE. I used some old knits I had laying around the black and white is an old shirt that was already mostly cut up and the black was some random pieces I had you can use anything you want. Cut the bodice piece just below the arm pit and then cut the rest (with overlap for seam allowance) out of another material. I hope you follow that ok. It’s really easy to do and you may get the idea as you read along.

So here are all my cut out pieces for the top. The black for the bottom. (really just rectangles that make up the bottom of the top they are both folded in half in the picture) The striped top bodice pieces. I made the front a higher neck line and the back is a V since it was cut from the V-neck on the old shirt. I also followed a shirt and made two sleeves cut from the stripes as well. You could mix as many different patterns or colors that you want, I just like to keep things simple in my design and went with two.

I apologize the pictures are a little rough… remember it has been busy…
Start by sewing together the top and bottom bodice pieces.

Then since my back neckline was finished but the front wasn’t a cut out a collar piece sewed it to the front and turned it around to the back top stitching it in place to give it a finished edge.

Then sew the shoulder seams together.

Then sew the sleeves on, I put a little gather in the middle but you can skip that if you want.

If you are working with a pattern like a stripe and it is possible, you may want to line up the stripes when you sew them on.(as shown above) Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t but it tends to look a little better if they match.

Then with right sides together sew from the end of one sleeve to the arm pit turn and sew down the side of the shirt. Do this to both sides and you have a top.
This would be the point where I had grand plans of doing a cool sequins design… which I may do some other time… But since it failed I went to plan B

A belt. To make it it was super easy. I made a tube out of jersy knit scraps, just big enough to comfortably sit around my daughters waist. Sewed it together.

Then with a hot glue gun, sequins and a few feathers I had left over from a different project. I glued them all together and got something like this. My daughter steps in to the belt, and it sits right at her waist. Comfortable enough to play in and yet it added a bit of interest to the top. I may be making myself a few belts…