Anthropologie's Patchwork V-neck tutorial

Anthropologie's Patchwork V-neck tutorial

• 3.09.2010

Oh, Anthropologie.  How you inspire us and frustrate us.  It seems like every time I go onto Anthro's site, I see new tops, tees, and dresses that I know I could copy for a fraction of the $78+ price tag.  Some of them I don't even like that much, but I feel the challenge and inspiration to copy them because I can.  Do you ever feel that way?
Today I'll share a tutorial with you for this lovely tee:

The Patchwork V-neck, a simple and versatile cotton tee with a patchwork of lovely neutrals, yellows, and prints.  We can totally make this!
Tutorial:

• Start with your tee (preferably a ring-spun v-neck).  I got this one at the Goodwill outlet when I was collecting yellow things--it's a Kohl's brand.  I think I wore it to paint in and it has a smudge of black high-gloss paint on the front!  I wish I had had a paler one like the Anthropologie v-neck, in a neutral color or something, but this will have to do.

• Now pull out all your pretty scraps and trims that you think capture the look of the Anthro copy.  I pulled out all the yellowy ones and some heavy cotton lace.

• Lay out the pieces as you'd like them to be.  I like to do this with my computer right behind my work so I can glance up a lot and look at what I'm copying!

• Use spray adhesive to keep all the fabric pieces in place.  If you don't have any spray adhesive, you could use pins, but this would be a serious pain in the neck.  I laid out the big piece that comes all the way up the right side first and cut away at the neck.

 Then add everything else with more adhesive...

• Press the pieces down carefully--watch out for melting and unsticking the spray adhesive.

• Sew down the pieces.  I used a zig zag stitch for most of the pieces, but a straight stitch on the finished edges of the hankie I used and on the very high quality, tightly woven shirt pieces (the gingham).

• Back to the computer, look at the inspiration and copy the embroidery pattern onto the shirt with a pencil or fabric marker.  I really wish I had a fabric marker in times like these...

 Can you just barely see the pencil marks I made?

• Using a thick thread, sew over your lines either by machine or by hand.  I used a heavy Coats and Clark cotton thread in off-white, which was not super easy to sew with, but which left very clearly visible stitches like the original has.

• This part is optional, and not necessary if you're new to sewing or unsure of your machine.  I used a buttonhole stitch to make little round-ish spots on the branch--the Anthro version has some fancier detail but this is my simplified version.  Some of them are just a row of buttonhole stitch, some are buttonhole, double back, more buttonhole next to the first.

• Next, clean up all the threads--trim lots of threads off the tree thing.
• That's it!  Maybe give it an extra press, but it should be done!

 There are so many pretty Anthropologie things to copy this spring... I will be doing more, so stay tuned!