Sweet Savanah: Peasant Top

Holy Hannah! I have been trying to upload this blog post for almost a week now, but Blogger has been struggling. But to much perseverance I have prevailed!!

Summer is coming (well... not really...) and Savanah's summer wardrobe is pretty sparse. I am still enrolled in SA (Skirtaholics Anonymous) and have been making great progress, so I have been trying my hand at some tops instead. This peasant looking top is so easy and you can change it up a ton. I have made several already in different variations. Savanah is in 2T clothing, so this is made to fit her. You would obviously need to adjust the sizing for your child. I began by cutting two pieces of fabric 14" wide by 16" long for the main bodice. I then cut two pieces 6" wide by 12" long for the arms.

A quick tip: I always struggled making arm holes for shirts. I would look at other tutorials that would say "go over two inches and down six inches and cut it in a J shape" and blah blah blah... It NEVER worked for me. Enter my brilliant idea that I am sure most of you have already figured out. I took one of Savanah's tank tops and traced the shape. Like DUH!!! It makes the process a million times easier.

Take your two bodice pieces and line them up wrong sides together. Then fold them in half hot dog style. This way you can cut all of the arm holes at once.

With the arm pieces line them up the same, wrong sides together, and fold in half lining up the short ends. If this doesn't make sense, basically you are lining up the two sides that are 6" long. Again, cut of the arm holes. I accidentally took this picture the wrong way, but whatever.

Take one of the bodice pieces and one of the arm pieces and line them up with right sides together, and pin around the arm hole. Sew from the top of the arm hole to the bottom.

Take your other arm piece and sew it to the other side of your bodice piece. When you have them both sewn on it should look like this.

Now take your other bodice piece and line up the arm holes again. If you look at the picture above you will see when I have the two sides pinned.

Once you have the final two sides sewn you piece should look like this. You can see where the bodice and the arm pieces are sewn together on this side.

Next, line up the sides on the shirt. I began by lining up the seem of the armpit so that it was even. Sew up the side and the small edge of the sleeve. You can see that there is only about 1" of the sleeve that needs to be sewn, up in the top right corner of the shirt.

Once both sides are sewn you will want to hem to bottom. I chose to make the hem a little larger. I folded the bottom 1/4" and ironed it flat. This way my edges would look finished. Then I folded the bottom about another inch to make the final hem.

Sew the hem closed near the top of the fold.

Now onto the arms. Again, I folded the material 1/4" to hide the raw edges. Then fold your edge about another 1/4" to create the final hem. Sew into place. This was a little tricky because the arm holes are a little small. Go slow!

To finish the top, you are going to want to make a basic casing.

I made my casing about an inch wide. I did this because I wanted to have a piece at the top that looked a little more finished.

After folding, and ironing, I sewed a straight line across the entire top of the shirt about the width of my sewing foot.

Then I measured down to a little more then how wide my elastic was. I am pretty sure I used 1/2" elastic. Sew another seam below the top seam, but leave a large enough space to thread your elastic through. Also, don't forget to back stitch!