Copycat Tribal Print Refashion

Hi Everyone!

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Summer vacation has finally arrived and not a moment too soon! It has been a long school year and I am ready for some serious rest, relaxation, and creation!

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Below you will see the “AFTER” of my latest project. With this refashion, you will see how making mistakes doesn’t necessarily mean your project is doomed to the rag pile. Watch how I adapt to design problems and mistakes that happen along the way.

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Here is the AFTER:

A casual jersey and linen t-shirt with color blocking and bit of a tribal feel. This is just perfect for summer with jeans or shorts, but the journey to get there wasn’t easy.

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This is a picture of where the idea for this began. I just loved the perfect simplicity of this piece.

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This is the first of the two pieces I put together to make it happen. It was a brand name polo shirt made of a beautifully weighted black jersey. There was also braid trim down the sleeves which I kept on the refashioned item.

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This linen dress was the printed piece. It looked pretty sad as is, but I saw potential in the beautiful tribal looking print.

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TUTORIAL:

Step 1) I planned to use the dress print as a horizontal stripe. Because the dress had darts, I had to even out the print before I could use it. In these 2 pictures you can see how uneven the print was in some spots because of the darts. I had to pin and sew this area straight down to even out the print.

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Step 2) I cut out the sleeves with my trusty t-shirt pattern that I have used many times before. Then I cut out the front from the print dress,(not pictured). I also cut out the back in two pieces as I couldn’t get the length I desired in one piece (also not pictured) At this point I had a basic sleeve, front, and a back in two pieces. Don’t understand? Stay with me and you will.

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Step 3) Here you see two of the problems I had with the back. This first one is a mistake. You can see that I accidentally cut the back panel with the front pattern piece cutting the neckline far too low. I decided to make the most of it and fill it in with a print piece. This way my mistake became a design feature! Also, you can see the seam that I had to add in order to make the back long enough. I didn’t like it. Topstitching was not going to be enough to make it look like it actually belonged. You will see my solution to this problem in one of the subsequent steps.

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Step 4) In order to make the triangular side panel, I measured how much I wanted to cut off of the side to make it look like the picture. After that, I drew in my line and cut off the side. Using the piece from the first side, I cut off the opposite side.

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Step 5) Using the cut piece, I made the black triangular pieces for each side.

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Step 6) Now you can see it put together and the fix for ugly seam in the back. My solution was to create a stripe across it with the print. It is simply and extra wide piece of the print sewn down like a decorative tape. It is not seamed.

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Step 7) Here you can see the finished product. In the end I had to add a black bias tape edge on the neckline. Turning and topstitch did not give the neck enough weight. It needed extra structure to hold up to the weight of the jersey.

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As always, I can’t wait to hear from you!

Later…

Love Ya,

Mary