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Tie-front top hack

One of my coworkers was wearing a really cute top with a tie-front a few weeks ago and as luck would have it, another sewist posted a tie-front tank top. I asked her about it and she said she'd hacked it and posted a picture of her pattern piece and I thought "well, if she can do it, I can do it!" You can do it too :-)

This was a really easy hack! For mine, I used the Ellie and Mac Going Home Sweater (afflink). It's a pretty basic raglan style pattern with t-shirt, tunic and dress lengths. For this hack, I used the t-shirt length of the pattern and a double brushed poly from CaliFabrics.

To add the tie-front, I traced off the front pattern piece on to my trusty bee paper. Instead of adding a band around the bottom, I would need to hem it so I added an 1 inch to the bottom to give myself some hem space.

Near the center fold, I drew my tie shape using my French curve. I made sure to not make it on the fold, but near and then made a slight curve inward at the bottom of the fold line to make and indentation where my tie would be (see red arrow). I made my ties 8 inches long.

I constructed the top as according to the directions until it came to finish the bottom. Instead of adding the band as indicated in the pattern directions, I hemmed it using a double needle at 1/2", even though I had allowed 1" I tried it on and was happier with the 1/2" hem (and it's better to have a narrower hem around the ties). Honestly, it's a little tricky to sew around the curves of the ties and the back could look neater but you don't really see the back when it's tied and being worn.


I immediately put it on and went to meet friends for a Greek festival! I regretted this a little because it was much to warm to wear double brushed poly, it's super cozy but it doesn't breathe!

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