*Burps*
Mmmm!
[Make Thrift Buy intro music]
Hey! Welcome to Make Thrift Buy, the show where YOU send in items of clothing that you've
seen on the internet, and then I try my best to recreate them.
Lately, I've had a number of you asking me to try and make these "fashion" sports
bras. And I've also been needing some exercise gear lately, but I didn't want to have to
buy exercise gear from the shops, so this is also a great excuse to learn how to make
some for myself!
Now I've actually come up with two methods of doing this. The first one is super easy
and the second one is not-as-easy, but it does give you a more customisable and potentially
more supportive fit.
Anyway in this video here, episode 53, I'm going to be showing you the SUPER easy way,
which is good for people who are new to the DIY-game – and then I'll also do an episode
53-and-a-half, which will show you the harder-but-much-more-customisable-way to do this.
Before we start, this video is sponsored by Graphic Stock. Graphic stock is a super useful
service if you are a graphic designer, or you run a website or a social media page,
or any other situation where you need access to good, royalty-free images. You can go here or
click the link in the description box below for a 7-day free trial and get started with
Graphic Stock today!
Alright, so let's get started with the first, EASY way to make one of these fashion sports
bras!
So, I thrifted myself some singlet tops in my size. It's really easy to find singlet
tops at the thrift store – there were about 50 of them to choose from at the one I went
to!
Next, I got myself the elastic that's going to serve as the thick, exposed elastic band
that goes around my waist – I'm going to use this rainbow elastic for the grey top,
and a light purple color for the purple top!
Then I put each singlet top on, and I figured out approximately where I wanted to crop it
to. You don't need to add any extra length to this measurement. I drew on a faint line
at this point using some chalk, and then I cut it straight across along the line. I'm
using a rotary cutter here, but you can also draw a line and then cut it out with some
scissors as well – just make sure to pin the back and front together before you do
this, so the fabric doesn't shift out of place.
Now I'm actually going to use this bottom section that I'm removing here to practice
on, before I apply the elastic to my crop top! It's a really good idea to use this
scrap to practice your elastic application, using just a small piece of elastic… before
trying the technique to your crop top for the first time ever and then potentially ruining
everything.
The next thing I did was measure out my elastic waistband – I did this by wrapping it around
my waist at the height I wanted it to sit, making sure it wasn't too tight – I pulled
it just slightly – and then I added an extra half-an-inch and I cut it, like this!
Then I folded the elastic into a loop like this, and sewed a straight stitch across here.
Then I clipped the excess elastic close to the stitches, folded the flaps open like this,
and I sewed a zig-zag stitch over both these little "flaps" to keep them flat – using
a thread in a matching colour to the elastic.
To apply the elastic band to my cropped singlet, first I needed to place 4 pins, evenly-spaced
around the bottom of the top – so one at each of the side seams, one in the
centre front, and one in the centre back, pointing downwards like this.
I did the same thing to the elastic, quartering it with pins, so that the 4 pins are evenly
spaced out.
The next step is sewing the elastic to the singlet top!
The elastic is going to be applied like THIS:
So I placed the elastic, sitting on top of the singlet top's raw bottom edge, underneath
my sewing foot. Then, I stretched the elastic so that the next set of pins met up. Then,
holding this in place, I started sewing the elastic to the fabric using a normal zig-zag
stitch. And I sewed I tried to get as close to the edge as possible, without the stitches
going off the actual edge of the elastic.
And I continued sewing the elastic band all the way around the singlet top, until I got
back to my first stitches!
So, this creates a nice sporty crop top, but it's kinda plain-looking and I wanted to
add some extra details!
So, we're going to add graphics to both the shirt AND to the elastic band as well!
Now seeing as Graphic Stock is sponsoring this video, I'm going to use graphics from
their website so I can show you a little bit of the behind-the-scenes of my design process.
I downloaded this photoshop image, and I turned it into a slogan – this slogan was actually
suggested in a previous Make Thrift Buy by "Mallow A", so thank you for the suggestion!
– I made it black, then I downloaded this scissor image, also from graphic stock and
I added it onto the slogan, and BAM – Craft or Die! I like this graphic a lot! And I'm
going to put this on the front of one of the crop tops!
And yes, I did consider "Craft or D-Y-E", because when in doubt, make a pun... but I
decided that was just a little bit too confusing.
Now, for the elastic, I'm going to make a short, snappy slogan – this time I used
the same editable text file, and I used it to write out "DIY life"… like this.
I put both of them into a word file, flipped them horizontally so that they will print
out BACKWARDS – and then I copied and pasted the DIY life part out a bunch more times so
that it can go all the way around an elastic band.
First, I printed this out onto plain paper so I could make sure it was the right size
for both the crop top and the elastic pieces, and THEN I printed it out properly onto my
nice, expensive transfer paper.
Now, this is very important for the elastic printing – most transfer papers WILL NOT
WORK on elastic. But I kept on hearing really good things about this: Leslie Riley's TAP.
Apparently it can be used on not only fabric but paper, wood, glass, metal… so I thought,
hey, maybe it can work on stretchy elastic as well!
So, following the instructions on the Transfer Paper, I cut out my slogans like this – I
didn't bother with cutting out each individual letter because apparently the white background
parts will go transparent – and then I spaced them out evenly along a fresh elastic band.
As you can see here this elastic band isn't yet sewn onto any crop tops – it's easiest
to apply the images to the elastic before you sew it to the top. So, this is going to
be going on a 3rd crop top.
I'm also using knitted elastic for this. It's about 1 inch wide, and it has a flat
surface to apply the transfer to. You don't want to use the type of elastic that's ribbed
or has big ridges on it – because that won't work.
So working one by one, I placed the "DIY-LIFE" image face-down onto the elastic, and I put
my press cloth over the top, and then I pressed it on with my iron, using a lot of pressure
and a near-maximum heat setting. Again, I recommend practicing this on your
scrap piece of elastic before going all-out on your measured elastic piece!
After about 20-30 seconds, I removed the iron, and the press-cloth, and I pulled off the
backing paper with a pair of tweezers – it should come right off without any resistance
if it's all transferred nicely. And… there we go! It's transferred onto my elastic,
and, check this out – you can stretch the elastic and it doesn't ruin the image at
all! I was so damn excited when I did this, because it looks so freaking professional!
This is AWESOME!
So I then went ahead and applied that elastic to a black singlet top that I already owned,
in the exact same way as I did for the purple one.
Applying the larger image to the singlet top is much the same as using any other t-shirt
transfer – and I've done a more in-depth tutorial on this in the past – but this
time I'm just replacing the transfer paper I used there with Leslie Riley's transfer
paper. I do think this transfer paper requires a
little bit of practice and I don't recommend doing a complicated or large graphic like
this on your first attempt – like I did! I think my heat settings were a little bit
off and it didn't transfer properly. But I think that was my fault, not the paper's
fault, and hey – I'm just going to say I did this on purpose and did it to give the
shirt a "vintage" feel.
I also added this little rainbow to the grey and rainbow top – the image was also downloaded
off graphic stock – and this one did turn out a lot better. Practise makes perfect,
guys!
So anyway, now I've made THREE sporty crop tops and it's time to find out – how did
I go?
[Music plays]
I would wear some leggings with these, but I literally don't own any - I think that's
the next thing that I need learn how to DIY.
Also important to note: that unless you start with a really tight singlet top, this is not
going to be as supportive as an actual sports bra, and we'll go through some techniques
to make a more supportive top in the next video. I still had to wear a bra underneath
these, but this style of crop top is really trendy right now, just as a fashion piece,
so they make really cute crop tops to just wear out and about – particularly underneath
overalls - I've seen some people wearing these kinds of tops underneath overalls, it's
really really cute.
And that's it! These turned out so super cute. I especially love the printing on the
elastic band. And I've also thrown this test elastic piece I did here into a couple of
loads of washing. The image hasn't faded at all and stayed on really well. So if you're
washing this - which... I recommend that you do, with clothing! Make sure you're washing
on a cold, gentle cycle and it'll stay on fine.
So in conclusion, this project is a:
[Scissor snipping, zipper sound effect]
Thrift some singlets, or use ones that you already have, crop them, add elastic, and
then if you want: add some graphics as a finishing touch – it's a really easy project that
can be done by sewing beginners, it's a good project to learn how to work with stretchy
fabrics, and it can easily be completed within a couple of hours!
Thanks again to Graphicstock for sponsoring this video. I've been using GraphicStock
for my Instagram edits and Youtube end-cards lately, and I've been finding it a SUPER
useful service, with over 300,000 images that also come in editable photoshop and illustrator
files. They also just launched this new collection of futuristic and dream-inspired images, which
is included in every subscription, which are So. Dang. Pretty. If you have any graphic
design element to your work, or you run your own business, website, youtube channel, etc,
it is SUCH a useful service and from my own experience I can highly recommend them. Thank
you for supporting the companies that support this channel! And as always, thank you for
so much for watching this video - don't forget to check out part 2 of this video, episode
53-and-a-half, which will be the harder, more customisable way of making one of these sports
bras! And I'll see you all next time. Bye!
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