Saturday

The Epiphany Tee (Inspired by Free People) DIY

I'm often inspired by Free People's clothing. I can't afford their price tags, but I can try to make something similar! On the left is Free People's Road Trip Tee and on the right is what I'm calling the Epiphany Tee because it led to this post the other day. I love how loose this tee is and how it can be worn off the shoulder. Mine is far from perfect and I still need to adjust the neckline a bit, but it's wearable and I finally conquered sleeves! Sewing is a learning process and an adventure I hope I don't lost interest in because the rewards are awesome. I drafted a pattern using tips from the video below.
I used four or five existing shirts to get the shape I wanted, but this video made the process much simpler. It helped me remember to add in seam allowances (wicked important yo) and how to create the pattern for the sleeves. I wanted the front and back of my shirt to be identical so I only needed to create one body pattern and then cut out 2 pieces of fabric.
You can see my body and sleeve pattern above. I folded my fabric in half and then placed my patterns on the fold so that the pieces would be perfectly symmetrical. In past projects I've found that it's a bit challenging to cut out a full body piece without their being a bit of variation and this step helped with that problem considerably. Having never sewn a piece with sleeves before I found these instructions invaluable. In summary, pin and sew just the shoulders together first, then the arm hole around the sleeve, then the bottom of the sleeve continuing straight down the sides of the shirt.
Like most of my sewing projects, this was pretty experimental. When I have an idea I'm often so overcome with excitement that I skip important steps, but I'm getting smarter with the whole process. I'm counting my pattern and sleeve making skills as a win from this project.

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