Clothes
Come, join me in anachronism! Nowadays, I mostly sew tops... Tank tops
in particular are wonderful; 1/2 a yard of material (typically $1-$4 worth) and a
couple of hours and voila, I need a new hanger.
I haven't been too impressed with the wardrobe on BtVS recently (geez, remember that Elmo road-kill of a shirt Willow wore in After Life? What *was* that thing?) but I thought it would be fun to pick a few simple beginner-suitable tops from years past and post instructions to my web-site on how to make your own variation. At least it's gotta be fairly unique as far as Buffy-related site content goes (please send me the URL if that's not true, I'd love to see what other people have come up with!) If the response is good, I'll add more... so if you want that, be sure to let me know!
I'm including detailed text instructions as well as a bunch of collage-style how-to illustrations. And I did my best to make the illustrations as pretty as well as straight-forward, so even if you don't intend to try this, you might want to check the instruction page just to see them.
So, come on, let's join Cordelia in an exhuberant "New clothes, I have new clothes!" dance... first up: the classic gathered-top tank.
SEWING PROJECT 1:
Gathered Neck Tank Top
The first screen capture of this kind of top I found was in "Inca Mummy Girl".
Neck's a bit high for my taste, but the basic principle is there. I'm pretty
sure you can spot variations of this throughout BtVS history, so if anyone can
think of specific episodes I should look at to find more examples, let me know
and I'll update this. A similar top is also featured in
this cute little SMG shot.
There's quite a bit of room for variation here, but the essential design
feature for this project is that the shoulder straps are formed from a single
piece that threads through a casing in the front to create a gathered,
draw-string effect. The neckline thus produced can be high or low, really
bunchy or just a little bumpy here and there, straight or curved. My example
shows a medium, straight, only-slightly-gathered neckline, but instructions
are included for other types, as well as other variations you can try your hand at.
SEWING PROJECT 2:
Basic Tank Top
This is pretty much *the* classic design for a tank top, so I'm sure there are lots of other examples I could have used...This one caught my eye because of the use of contrasting color, which makes how it was put together much clearer, so I thought it would make a good example. For my mock-up, I used white fabric instead of blue, and made it a bit longer, but other than that, it's pretty similar.
