Easiest upcycle ever!

Summary

Hi, hello, new tutorial, and this one is the easiest one ever, even if it did take me an embarrassing number of takes. If you liked this top, I'll show you how to make it in literally two cuts. Start with a square of fabric, fold it down to quarters, cut your armholes and a little neck hole, and zoop it together on the machine. That's it. That's the shirt.

Best part: once you've got the basic shape down, you can riff on it endlessly. Crop it, make it a tank, a vest, a plunging neckline, sew on some buttons. Two cuts and a whole lot of options.

• Start with a square (mine was 36" x 36"), fold in half (cute sides kissing), then in half again into quarters.
• Cut your armholes based on your pit-to-pit measurement (cut half of it from the center) and how far down you want the armhole.
• Cut a simple neck hole an inch or two down from the folded top.
• Sew up the sides, finish the neckline (bias tape or a double fold), flip right side out, done.
• Remix it: crop it, tank it, vest it, add buttons. Endless options from one easy base.

Transcript

Hi. Hello. New tutorial. This is the easiest one ever and you would not believe how many takes this has taken me. Please God, let me get it this time. You liked this top, so I'm going to show you how to make it in like literally two cuts. Okay, first start with a piece of fabric. Mine was 36 inches by 36 inches. You can use any size. You're going to take it, fold it in half, cute sides kissing. Then you need to know your pit-to-pit measurement and where you'd like your armhole to start. For me it's 18 pit to pit and probably like 7 inches from here to here. I can't remember and it doesn't matter right now. You've got this folded in half. This will be your front, this will be your back. My nails are disgusting because I washed my hair today, it stains them, it happens. Once you know front and back, fold it in half one more time so it's in quarters. This is your folded side.

Now, like I said, I need 18 inches pit to pit, so I'm going to cut 9 inches from the center here. I should include room for seam allowance. And I'm going to cut up to 9 inches from the top. Oop, boop. If you'd like to see that more visually, too bad, because I don't have it on any of these. Okay, so if you unfolded it, you'd see the center of your body, a sleeve, and a sleeve. But we're not unfolding it yet because we're also going to cut a neck hole. The simplest one is to come down about an inch or two from the top of that fold and then cut over whatever feels good to you. Maybe 5 inches this way, and that'll give you 10 inches total. Stick with me.

And then you unfold it. Now do you kind of see the shirt taking shape? If this was real fabric, these would fall down and fit the curve of your shoulder, but this is paper so it doesn't. After you do that, you go over to your sewing machine and you zoop zoop that baby. You can finish the neck a million different ways. I really like bias tape for these, but you can also just double fold it and do it that way. After it's all stitched up, just that line and that line in the neck, baby girl, you flip it right side out and that's your shirt. It's done.

You can also cut this very short if it's too long. You could cut the sleeves like this if you don't like the extra bulk, or cut them to make a short sleeve. You could turn it into a tank top. You should probably not do that. Come here. Okay, now it's a tank top. Like anything could happen. Oh, you want the neck to be more plunging? Okay, cut it down. Oh, you want it to be a vest now? Okay, cut it up all the way, fold it over, hem that down, sew on some buttons, fold this over, zoop zoop it down, make some button holes. Now it's the best. You can do literally anything with this, and it's like one, two cuts. Like two cuts. It's so easy. Go have fun. Show me what you make. I love you. Have a great day. Thank you. Goodbye.