- Today our goal is to take our nine base patterns and mix and match to see the results.

The capsule wardrobe is complete, but they are all patterns, and we have extra fabric.

So we can shake it all up a bit and see what comes out.

A dress, a jumpsuit, some crystals?

Join us today as we have pattern play time with those nine patterns to make more than our original 27 outfits.

Watch out, fashion world.

Here we come, today on Fit 2 Stitch.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Vogue Fabrics, (gentle piano music) Colorado Fabrics, (gentle piano music) Quality Sew and Vac, (gentle piano music) Sew Town, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Fort Smith, Arkansas.

(gentle piano music) Kai Scissors, (gentle piano music) Sew Steady, (gentle piano music) Bennos Buttons, (gentle piano music) All Brands, (gentle piano music) Cynthia's Fine Fabrics, (gentle piano music) and Clutch Nails.

- This is the best part.

We have our nine patterns, fitted, ready to go, and the world is ours.

We are unleashed, we are women, (chuckles) watch out.

We can do so much with these nine patterns.

And our whole plan today is to just get your brain start to churning and your creativity, just take it out of the box from where it is, because I really wanna see and show you what we can do.

So we're gonna start simple, we're gonna take off, but we're gonna cover the tank, the knit top, the blouse.

It's that top that, when we change it up, it completely makes a whole another outfit.

And that's what we wanna look at.

The first thing we're gonna do is, we took Jeannie and we took her skirt, and you remember this was her skirt.

We didn't even undo it.

We just laid it just like that on the fabric, we took her top, and we put it center front on fold, we went straight on up, and we cut around and we made a dress.

So we combined it together.

So here's just some things to watch out for.

I'm not gonna worry about the bottom, but I am gonna worry about the waist.

Whenever I combine these two together, whatever waist is wider, go with the wider one.

So if you lay them together, for whatever reason if the waist on the yoga skirt is wider, blend it into the upper portion of the tank top.

If the tank top is wider, blend it into the portion of the skirt, the reason being is, it's a side seam and it's so easy to tweak once you get it on the body.

But you don't wanna go to the smaller one because you don't want it to be too tight.

It's pretty simple.

Now, one other thing to think about is, I wanna have a little bit of a gap or not between the two.

It depends on what I want.

When Jeannie and I were doing this, we decided it would be nice to create a little blouson.

So we actually put a little two-inch gap because we wanted it to come an inch up and an inch back so that she would have a blouson.

So we wanted a little tank dress, a little belt, a blouson look.

That's all we wanted.

Everything was fitted.

We didn't have to go back and refit that tank top, we didn't have to do any of that.

And here we have it, Jeannie has it on today.

Now keep in mind this is her muslin.

This is just kind of a rough draft of what we wanna have.

Look at, we adjusted the dart earlier, we already did that, we're gonna sneak a peek at those armholes.

Can we see that?

Oh my gosh.

Look at, they just look beautiful.

No grocery store look here because remember, this is her muslin.

So it still has seam allowance on it.

You can check and see if you like that.

Neck edge, if you wanna take it down, you can still make all those changes.

But notice how that base piece fits and how right it is?

The hem of her skirt is even.

I love it.

- I do, too.

- I love it.

Was it, how long did it take you, do you think?

- Maybe, (scoffs) less than an hour.

- Less than an hour, because we just laid it down and just cut around and we used it as a base.

But what was important is, we had the angles of the neckline so that wouldn't gap, we had the angles of the armhole so that all stayed nicely, we knew the location of the dart, everything was right in place.

- Yes.

- Fabulous.

- I love it.

- And then she put a little wrap on just because?

- Just to cover up my arms, and it's cold.

- There you go.

- Yes.

- All those things.

Jeannie, thank you.

- You're welcome.

- Appreciate all your time.

That was fun.

And you know, I will tell you that when you find a sewing buddy, life doesn't get better.

Just an FYI.

And you can always find a sewing buddy.

There's one around every corner.

All right, so now with this tank top, we wanna do, I wanna show you a few other things.

Always, we've talked about fabric, always consider your fabric.

If your fabric has one-way stretch, you're probably going to have a little different length and overlap than if your fabric has two-way stretch.

So if your fabric has two-way stretch and you've got stretch going the length of the garment, you'll wanna overlap it a little bit more because the fabric will stretch and you'll wanna compensate for that length.

So the next thing I'm gonna do is the exact same thing.

Let me show you, hang on, hang on, hang on.

I'm gonna show you, we're gonna make a little jumpsuit.

Too cute!

So I took my tank top.

You see the dart.

I took the yoga pant, or your knit pant, whatever it is, again, I overlapped them because I wanted a little bit of a blouson, and then I cut it off, josh, whatever length you want.

You could make it long to the floor, it doesn't make a difference.

But you're simply now going to, again, remember when you overlap it, you've gotta mark the waist on your tank.

Don't use the whole tank.

Obviously that would be way too long 'cause the tank went below your waist.

So once you make the tank, mark where your waist is, bring it back to the pattern, I'm gonna fold this out, and then you can see I just cut that all in one.

It's so easy.

Notice how I have the top is wider than the bottom.

I'm just gonna continue that.

I'm gonna blend it into the hip line.

Then once I get it on, I can always take it away a little bit.

It makes sense that the tank top is wider than the pant because the tank top had room for a dart here and the pant did not.

So it's probably logic what's gonna follow.

Just kind of keep that in mind as we're putting them together.

And I think over, over and over you wanna say to yourself, "You know, a failure, in every failure I have "there's a lesson I'm going to learn."

So just don't be afraid.

Use fabric you've had for a while that you, you know, our tastes change, we grow out of things.

So you don't mind losing something or making a fabric, you know.

I always say if you ruin it, just put it back in your stash.

No one will ever know it's ruined and you still get to look at it and you still get to enjoy it.

All right, so I wanna look at tank tops.

I'm gonna select this one because it's so pretty.

And I wanna show you how to just put a pleat all the way down the front.

So you're gonna open this up as if it were not sewn, and you're gonna see that's actually center front.

And right at center front what I did is, I added, that looks like it's two inches.

So I'm just gonna take my paper, I'm gonna add two inches all the way down the front, and that's it.

Easy, easy to do.

I'm just using construction paper.

Use anything that's easy.

And remember, from center front I wanna bring it out all the way two inches.

I'm not gonna tape it.

I'm just gonna put it there so you can see exactly what it is.

Now you cut this portion on the fold.

Let's go back and I'll show you how it was done.

You can see that there was an extra two inches.

That's my blue paper.

I stitched right at center front.

You can see that stitching goes right up center front.

And then I split the difference and opened that pleat right up the center.

And just to accentuate it a little bit, I added on a few little crystals.

We'll do that in a little bit.

'Cause there's a lot of fun stuff I can do with crystals.

All right, so just a fun little tank top.

And you can put all kinds of different neck edges.

We showed a couple of those.

Fun to do.

With this one, there are so many, this was a purchased one I saw.

There's so many of these beautiful little neck pieces out there.

They're available.

A lot of times I'll go, like, just to a fabric sale.

And you'll see them, like, in the back corner in a bin.

You gotta go to the back corner, you gotta go to the bin.

It's like the best place on the planet.

And you'll find these really pretty neck pieces.

In every case of these neck pieces, you'll find that they follow the French curve.

So what you're gonna do, and it doesn't matter if you put 'em on woven or knit, won't make any difference, but you wanna make sure that your fabric is heavy enough to support the weight of the piece that you're using.

So when I say that, you could actually take a piece of fabric, pin it on, and hold it up.

And if you're seeing a whole bunch of pull marks from the neck piece, it's just, the fabric's not enough weight.

And a lot of times rayon knits are lighter knits.

With these wooded pieces, they're just too heavy.

You almost have to go into a woven when you're dealing with the wood.

But again, just try it out and be careful.

But what you're gonna do is, I'm gonna lay my French curve right into that neck piece.

And you're gonna see that my French curve will pick up the edge of that neck piece all the way.

In this case, it starts with 18, I'm sorry, that's 16, comes all the way around to the middle.

And then what I'm gonna do is take those exact numbers and I'm gonna transfer it to my pattern so that I'll know exactly where to bring up the neckline.

So when I lay the fabric on top of my neck piece, it'll match perfectly.

I've got several options.

I can actually lay it on top and I can leave it down from the shoulder edge a little bit.

I don't have to put it right on the shoulder edge.

Another thing to consider if I'm moving it up or down is, how low do I want the neckline itself?

And if I don't want that low of a neckline, then I can actually bring it up.

I can actually take a few beads off here.

If you notice on most of these neck pieces that you'll buy, the top portion often repeats itself.

And that's for the sole purpose that I can really adjust it which way I want it to be.

And as I take those beads off, I could sew them onto the back, I could do all kinds of decorative things with them.

But this is just a fun, easy thing.

I can add it to either my tank top or my knit top, just depending.

Do remember though, if I add it to my woven, I've gotta be able to get my neckline off and on.

So usually they've gotta be low enough to where I can get that garment off an on.

So then with tanks, one thing I love about the tank dress when I do that is, use a great border print.

Border prints are absolutely beautiful.

And with every time I do a border print, what I notice and what I want is, I want the fabric to do all the talking.

So you see a beautiful piece of fabric.

Here this is a Max Mara.

I don't know if you're familiar with that particular designer.

But you can see that my fabric is going to do all the talking.

And when that happens, I wanna keep the pattern really simple.

Think, complex fabric, simple pattern.

Simple fabric, more complex pattern.

That's kind of how you always wanna think.

So in this case, again let's look at another fabric.

I just love this border print.

I can see an amazing pair of pants.

Except in this case what I would do is, I would put it like this so that you see the lighter color actually goes to the bottom of the pant.

Wow, what fun.

Border prints are always my favorite.

I don't think a wardrobe can have too many border prints because I just think they say so much in the communication.

In this case, I did the same tank dress.

I just lengthened it.

Except that what I did is, I changed out the colors.

And always put your darker on the bottom.

Make your horizontal cuts where it's comfortable and keep them in proportion.

So this was a one to one and to the rest.

This is what we call halves.

Just once I did the halves, I took the top and divided those in half as well.

So proportions are always important.

I wanna remember them.

Just keep them in mind as I'm dividing the body up horizontally.

And do remember, every time I make a horizontal cut, (clicks tongue) I'm gonna cut the body.

I'm gonna look a little wider and a little shorter.

But you know, hey, my mother was five two, and my father used to say she was proud of every pound she put on and she didn't wanna change it.

So she used clothing to make her look as tall and as thin as she possibly could.

This is another tank dress.

And what we see a lot of times with tank dresses now is, the casing, because that blouson look is really stylish, it was popular years ago, but the reason it was stylish is, it makes the bottom look smaller than the top.

So what's ever under that blouson looks smaller than what's below it.

And there's not a figure on the planet that can't wear it, and it will always slenderize you.

But in this case what I did it, we just took a little bias stripe and added it both to the neckline and to the casing.

And I did put the casing right on the outside.

It's a knit, it's okay to fray.

The whole goal of this part is to take those nine patterns and just kind of loosen up with the rules a little bit and just play.

I really do believe in the playing.

It's just a lot of fun.

This is the tank top with just a little trim around the neck edge.

Easy to do.

You know, even if I didn't have the whole way, I could still just use a little bit of it.

This is a play on fabric where I've got all the fringe at the bottom.

Hey, I'm just let it go and let it hang.

And as we know right now, tops are really popular that we have lace and fringe and all that kind of stuff hanging at the bottom.

So we're gonna show you how to fringe to make sure you know how and we'll give you an option on that.

This is a case where I actually now added a few little pleats.

And so what I'm gonna do is show you how to add those pleats.

I'm gonna make sure you have lots of fun in the process.

So let's just kind of look at this a little bit.

This is just a tank top, nothing different done to it except that I've added the pleats, sewn them back together, and then just put a little tiny decorative jewel in between each one.

So what I'm gonna do is fold this in half, because that's all we wanna do, is look at half of it.

Sometimes if you look at the whole thing, it gets a little confusing.

And you're gonna notice that there's one, two, three, four, five, six little pleats.

I'm gonna put the tank top the exact same way it is so that it causes to me, when I look at the same side same way, I get a little less confused.

So we'll notice that the first cut, and we'll measure them, they're only half inch and they're a half inch apart.

Notice the first one kinda goes to the armhole.

So we'll start from the middle, because that's actually right from the middle, we'll start a half inch out, and there's the first one.

So we went in and took a half inch, we skip a half inch and do the next one, we skip a half inch and do the next one.

We skip a half inch and do the next one, skip a half inch and do the next one, skip a half inch and do the next one.

So there we have our six.

Then you just wanna notice, whenever I'm doing adding a pleat, I'm gonna cut, I'm gonna open it up the width of the pleat and then just sew it back together.

So I'm gonna open it up somewhere, either one of those cuts, it doesn't matter, and I'll open it up for the amount of the pleat.

This one notice it goes in that direction, toward the armhole, that one does the same thing, they just kinda make a ray of sunshine.

You can cut right through the dart because it's not gonna make a difference, because once I restore it back, I'm still gonna mark my dart exactly how it is.

And each time I open this, I'm gonna put a little piece of paper behind it and tape it down.

And that's going to be the amount that I pleat together.

How's that for easy and fun?

I originally saw this tank top.

I won't even tell you the price 'cause it was over the top.

But when you see that stuff, and I tell people all the time, "Go shopping."

And women say to me, "No, I hate shopping," say, "No, no, no, it's your homework.

"It's your assignment.

"You're gonna go out and you're gonna investigatively shop.

"You're gonna look for great ideas "and come back and put them into these nine pieces."

So then you'll just continue to do that all the way around, you'll sew it up.

The fit will be there, the armholes will still fit beautifully.

You're continuing to go.

All right, so tank tops.

Now keep in mind, don't let me, like, you know, you've got many more ideas.

My job is to give you the concept of how.

Your job is to expand and continue to do from there.

Let's look at the knit shirt.

I wanna take the front two pieces that we had.

And we're gonna put those on the table.

A lot of creative things can be done with asymmetric.

Asymmetric is always just a really fun way to do.

And let's look at some asymmetric ideas.

This one in particular.

Black and white, classic as can be.

The white is just the regular t-shirt, and all we did was add length.

Then the black that goes on top, both for the front and for the back, we doubled it and then we drew a line, if you'll notice, we drew a line from this point of the shoulder, bam, to this point down at the bottom.

That is all a design line.

It's exactly where you wanna do it when you wanna do it.

I always copy and I always get an idea, but it doesn't mean I don't come back and change it up.

And then if you notice the black is actually several inches longer than the white.

It's just because it's fringed, it doesn't look that way.

So one black sleeve, one white sleeve, and the same thing to the back.

So all I have to recognize is that when anything goes past center front, it is a portion of it and then divided to the other side.

And as long as I realize that asymmetric is actually the whole thing put together and then generally cut up and done the same, I'll get it.

I wanna show you real quick how to do that fringe, just because when you come into a knit, you may just get a little confusion as to how it can be done.

And theirs is just easy, easy, easy.

Keep in mind that with any knit, you're gonna have two directions of stretch.

I'm going to take the fabric, cut it and pull.

And that is the most horrible looking fringe I've ever seen on the planet.

So clearly, don't do it that way.

Come to the other way.

And I can't give you, like, a consistent way because all of the knits and the differences you'll experience, they're all gonna be a little bit different.

But all you're gonna do is take a little section, make sure you're going both different directions, hold it at the base, and then pull it.

And that is the best looking fringe I've ever seen.

Wow, is that fun.

And of course you get this really fun little fringe.

And I will tell you, this is a great way to teach girls, young girls, I think, to sew, is to have fun projects like this.

A friend of mine once says, if you teach your daughter or granddaughter to sew, she'll never have enough money for drugs or boys.

And I think that's great philosophy.

Keep 'em busy on the sewing machine and keep 'em busy with all these fun ideas.

But you've gotta give 'em fun ideas that are current and fresh and really trendy to do.

This t-shirt in particular, gosh, this is just the fabric.

And so it takes it from a t-shirt to just a really nice occasion.

This one, stripes, going one way, going another way, a few little crystals there in the corner.

We are good to go with this one.

I wanna show you this one because this has got just a really fun little sleeve here.

And I wanna show you how to do that.

Keep in mind that I have one edge that's longer and one edge that's shorter.

That's all you have to do, so that when you take your t-shirt, the portion that you're gonna put it on, which is going to be right along this center, not in the center but in the middle of that piece, that's gonna be, that's about 20 inches in the front and 20 inches in the back.

So all I'm gonna do is kind of make a miniature little version of it.

I'm just gonna cut a rectangle.

I want that rectangle to be as long as it is in the front.

And then what I'm gonna do is just cut, cut, cut, keep cutting, all the way to the pivot points.

I'm gonna spread this out.

And I'll spread it to one and a half to one.

So if this is 20 in the middle, this outside will be 30.

And once I sew it on, it's gonna have this beautiful cascading ruffle on the outside.

That is fun because once you learn how to do ruffles, you can put ruffles anywhere.

Notice I lowered the neckline here and I've got a ruffle, and it's going all the way from the sleeve all the way across the other side of the front.

This one in lace.

Ruffles are just fun.

They're fun to know how to do, they're fun to understand, so that I can do 'em in lots of different places.

I do wanna show you crystals.

Then I'll just show you a couple more ideas.

But I really wanna show these crystals to you because I think with crystals, they're just a lot of fun.

And I notice that crystals are on a lot of things these days.

So most of the time, crystals will come on a little sheet like this.

I can cut 'em in any direction I want.

I put them on the fabric and just use your steam.

People say to me all the time, "What if I don't hold 'em long enough?"

(steam sizzles) Just go back.

So keep in mind what's happening is the glue is actually melting.

So once you've got 'em on, if you take them off before the glue dries, they won't stick.

If that's the case, put 'em back on, (iron hisses) do it again, stick your face over there and get a nice facial while you're doing it, and then go ahead and just pull this off.

And you see, you just get beautiful crystals.

And I'm really surprised.

When I first starting using crystals, I thought, "Oh, they'll just wash off."

They don't!

They stick on and they're really, really great and they really hold.

A couple more ideas we want for crystals just in the front, just a little bit, and you'll find a little bit goes a long way.

Don't forget grommets.

I think grommets are another one of my favorites, just because I think they look so, I don't know, store bought, I guess is the only thing I know how to say.

With the classic blouse, if you take and leave off the sleeves and just put a zipper right up the front, look at that.

That's the classic blouse.

It's just a vest now.

It's completely sleeveless and we've done so much with it.

Remember with knits, we can just cut.

We don't even have to finish.

We just cut 'em and leave 'em, and we can create all kinds of fun little backs.

This is the back of our t-shirt.

Add a few crystals.

(gasps) The ideas just keep coming.

So just keep in mind that remember what those nine patterns will give you, a lifetime of wardrobe that you will love and it will love you.

I hope you have enjoyed this season as much as we have.

This crew and this whole entire studio says thank you for watching.

Nine patterns, 27 outfits, but a lifetime of ideas added on top.

What I love about sewing is that I always have more to learn and I continue to get better, and you will, too.

Thanks to you for watching.

We will be back with another season of Fit 2 Stitch.

(gentle piano music) - [Announcer] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Vogue Fabrics, (gentle piano music) Colorado Fabrics, (gentle piano music) Quality Sew and Vac, (gentle piano music) Sew Town, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Fort Smith, Arkansas, (gentle piano music) Kai Scissors, (gentle piano music) Sew Steady, (gentle piano music) Bennos Buttons, (gentle piano music) All Brands, (gentle piano music) Cynthia's Fine Fabrics, (gentle piano music) and Clutch Nails.

(gentle piano music) (chiming music) To order a four-DVD set of Fit 2 Stitch, Series Seven, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.