I don't want no scrubs... making the Rectangle Top

Kylie: Gemma from Sewing Gem. And I'm Kylie from Kylie and the Machine. And welcome to the Sewing Club podcast. It's like a book club, but for sewing. And today's episode is a pattern review, and we're reviewing the rectangle top. Yeah, it's an awesome pattern, isn't it, Kylie? Yeah, and it's from Sewing Therapy. So we had the chance to chat with Sarah from Sewing Therapy, and it was really great to chat to her about her. ideas behind the pattern and how sewing therapy came to be. ⁓ yeah, it's a great pattern. What do you think of it? Are we doing the catch up first? Yeah, we should. Yeah. Okay. I knew this would happen. It's We always have a moment at the beginning. Okay. It's been a little while since we recorded a a podcast. just, you know, we had a little bit of a break and we've got a new studio that we're recording in. So it's all a little bit different. Yeah, we used we used to do it in our l in my lounge, didn't we? ⁓ Kylie. And we've sort of had a bit of an upgrade, I think, in the sense that we've got cameras facing us and lights. So ⁓ yeah, we feel like we're we're really professional now. We're just trying to keep keep up with the the the yeah, everything, I guess. Yeah, and ⁓ a a few people did mention that they'd like to see more, potentially like a video on YouTube. And so that's Probably what we're gonna yeah what we're gonna do if we're brave enough, we might post this on on YouTube. We both did our hair this morning. Yes. So we're ready to be on video, as ready as we'll ever be. And we're both wearing the pattern as well, ⁓ that we're reviewing today. Yeah, we're listening to you. People said we should be wearing the you know, the pattern that we're reviewing. and you see there's a couple of behind us. ⁓ yeah. So what have you been up to, Gemma? What have I been up to? Well, it's been yeah, it's been busy. ⁓ as you know, I think I mentioned in previous podcasts that, you know, as well as doing the ⁓ selling online through sewing gym, ⁓ I'm also doing sewing lessons as well now. And that's definitely taken up a big chunk of my time. ⁓ but I'm very much enjoying it. We're sort of getting into things now and classes are filling up, and yeah, it's been good. In fact, This is a top that I think is a perfect beginner top and will be or has been included in my ⁓ second stitches class. Excellent. Yeah, I I could totally see that. Yeah, it's it's a really great beginner top. I was thinking the exact same thing when I was making mine. Yeah, absolutely. And how about you, Carly? What's what's going on over at Okay, too. Lots of things going on. Always. Always. Always lots of things going on. yeah, we've just done a complete rebrand of all of our label packs, which was always on the cards. We ⁓ you know, I don't know how many years ago it was. It was meant to be like a temporary solution, you know, that we thought we'd you you know you have for like six months to a year, but then you know, all these things kept happening in the world and we, you know, couldn't get around to changing it. But we we went to from paper. packaging to plastic packaging ⁓ for many commercial reasons. ⁓ and then it's taken us a long time. But now we have transitioned back to all of the packaging into paper again, which is like a really huge thing for a tiny little team like us. ⁓ but ⁓ it's where we wanted to end up anyway. And I'm very happy with how they look and we're never changing anything ever again. That's really exciting though. And ⁓ what an achievement to be able to do that, as you say, as a small business. So tell me a bit about the new packaging. ⁓ well, it's basically well, okay. I could talk about this for the whole damn episode. Maybe don't do that. But okay. So when I first started, we had you know, craft paper, pay packaging, and then we had stickers, right? So like the cra so if you think about All the every envelope was craft and then to change from design to design, you just change the sticker. And ⁓ then we had a different coloured paper and still had the sticker. But the stickers were such a pain in the butt, there was always problems with the stickers. Had stickers peeling off, stickers not being opaque enough, and like the you know, things like seeing through and pe and the factory putting the stickers on either crooked or misaligned or Literally upside down. ⁓ all of this stuff. and then we we d we just couldn't deal with that anymore. But we needed to have barcodes. So we had to have a solution to have barcodes for our retailers because we wanted to move, you know, we're it's a commercial kind of product. ⁓ so we had to decide what are we gonna do? We need like we can't afford or have the time or the staff to sort of design every little pack front, back, have a barcode and and then print individual, you know, envelopes for each design. It's like such a huge, huge thing. That would be massive. Yeah. So we decided to choose something that was plastic because it sort of met all of our needs. and it was meant to be temporary and then here we are like three years later. ⁓ but, you know, it it's a journey, a business. You just have to you I mean it was like we had to keep going, right? Absolutely. You just have to keep going. You do and then we've finally Finally made it over that hump. So yeah. Well, congratulations. I think that's awesome. And ⁓ they look fantastic. And ⁓ yeah, so I do pretty much all the graphic design for the for the packaging of any packaging you see, ⁓ apart from like when we get artists to do the artwork, but I still do like the graphic design. I'm not a graphic designer. Well, you should be. I'm just making it up as I go along. So ⁓ yeah. Yeah, so I'm pretty proud of that. And ⁓ by the time this episode is launched, it will they'll be out in the world and we've got a whole bunch of new designs as well. But we're also working on the calendar, we're also working on some other new projects. ⁓ yeah, and we released a pattern. Cool. What's the pattern? ⁓ it's called the Binny Bolster. Ooh. It is something that we designed years ago and then just, you know, things get tossed aside and then we like bring it back out again and ⁓ The design is it's a yoga bolster, it's a it's two sizes, you know, like a cylinder. Yeah. But it's designed to eat up all your fabric scraps. So that's it's a gr it's a good scrap buster. We're always looking for scrap busters. Exactly. And ⁓ it's called binny after the bin chicken because because, you know, the bin chicken knows what to do with scraps. For our international listeners, do you think we should explain what a bin chicken is? Can you explain it, Gemma? Well, they're like these well, they're they're a type of bird that we have here in Australia, an ibis, ⁓ that likes to forage through bins regularly. ⁓ trash cans. Trash, anything really that's going. Any kind of like leftovers or scraps. They look quite unique. They're very sort of long-legged, tall with big huge kind of beaks. Yeah. And they walk like dopies. They won't hurt you, but you when you first meet them as a Brit coming to Australia, you sort of question whether you need to be scared. They're not shy of humans. No, they're not shy of humans. ⁓ but no, that's a great night name because they are, yeah, into every single bin, every single bit of rubbish that they can possibly find. So ⁓ yeah, feed that feed that bolster. Exactly, exactly. And like you you know, when you got your scraps in a bin or something, it it looks pretty volumous, but once you start stuffing them into something, they compress a lot and then So you could have a huge big tub of scraps and you could jam them all into this bolster and be nice and firm. Yeah. ⁓ and then you can also like add to it because it's got a zip. So I think you need to bring one next time we record, Kylie. And we could put one behind That's a great idea. Just give us a bit of a bolster. Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah. I made a beautiful one for my couch with like some like fluffy fabric. And then my lovely children decided to grab onto the handle and thro and like hit each other with it. ⁓ of course. Yeah. It it's like a a whacking. Yes. And they've kind of like ripped out a little bit of the handle. Because I mean it's pretty heavy this year. So yeah. So way more scraps than keep it away from them. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Keep it away from them. ⁓ way more strap scraps than you would imagine you need. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Like the small one alone would gobble up heaps of scraps. But the large one is Like I ran out of scraps at the office. Yeah. And the in fact the one I made for my ⁓ couch, I didn't even have enough scraps. I bought a couple of ⁓ pillows. Okay, to fill it up and just like filled it up. And that's something you can do if you don't have any. If don't have enough, that's a good idea. Because it's like a cushion after all. Yeah. It can just be a cushion. You could actually It doesn't have to just it doesn't have to be a scrap thingy. ⁓ it can just be a nice cushion. You know, as soists, I think we have so much guilt about when it what do we do with those scraps. So this really is a perfect project for that. 'Cause you know, we've all got bags sitting there. We're not quite prepared to just shuck out, but we're like, what do I do with them? Yeah. and yeah, it's good to good to be able to use them in this sort of proactive way. Yeah, and and the reason and you our mule tote pattern. Yes. So the reason we made this pattern was because when we we have the webbing, ⁓ and when you make the straps out of the webbing, you end up with just a little bit left over. Just a little bit. And I'm like, ⁓ What could I do with that little bit? And that's where the bolster came from. ⁓ Cause it's a perfect little handle. I think I need to add this into my sewing lessons actually at Sewing Gem, because we do another class which is for complete beginners and they make a tote bag and they also use webbing. A very simple bag, not quite as complex as the as like the seams inside the mule tote, but a very simple bag. But we also end up with lots of little bits of webbing that I'm really not quite sure what to do with. So that's definitely gotta be. Yeah, because you can't do with Do much with little tiny bit. No, maybe we just need one at the Sewing Gem studio that we can put all the all the scraps in. Yeah. Maybe keep it away from the kids. Yeah, I'll just keep definitely. My kids would whack each other with it. They would just get I don't know, food down. They're not allowed to eat on the couch, but somehow it food always finds its way on the couch. I don't know how. But apparently it's nobody. It's it's Mr Nobody. Food fairy, Food fairy, yeah. Well, after this f pillow fight, no The older one, the teenager, he asked me, Can you make me one of these? What did you say? Like, what do you want it for? And he's like, I just like lay you know, leaning on it. Laying on it and whacking my brother's. Maybe I'll make you one. As long as you know maybe I won't put a handle. Yeah. I think the handle is the issue. It's too inviting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. Anyways. Cool. Moving on. Rectangle top. Rectangle top. Great pattern. Yeah. I made well, I've got a few hanging behind me, Carly, but I think I've made about five. Five? Yeah. My gosh. I do know what I love about them, yeah, is how quickly they come together. They are the ultimate beginner pattern because they're literally rectangles, so there's limited fitting, really limited fitting. It's gonna fit everyone. and I think it kind of suits everyone as well. It's a really versatile pattern, but it goes together quickly and it goes together easily, and it's a bit of a scrap buster because it is rectangles. ⁓ you can really get, you know, you can have a very small amount of fabric and get. ⁓ top out of it, right? Yeah. So should we describe it for the listeners? I think we should, definitely. Well, I guess the rectangle top, it comes in three main views, but then there's variations on those three main views. And ⁓ view A is a slit opening top. it does it has just side seams, shoulder seams, and then you know The slit opening and two armhole openings and then you've got the option of shearing the end ⁓ the what are we calling this? The the the hem? The hem, yeah. Well it's not even really the hem higher up the waist, I would It's shearing the sort of waist area. I've actually got it over here in this blue so you can see the shearing. That's the view. Well, see, then you can mix and match, right? Which is what I've done, just to confuse things. But let's let's view the views. View B has little Gussets, I guess? Yeah, like they've basically it's they've added in two more ⁓ rectangles as sh ⁓ part of the shoulder. Yes. So you've got four rectangles with view B and with view C actually. ⁓ and so you've got two rectangles sitting on your shoulder and then you've got a rectangle front and back. And you have a rectangle like opening for your head. Yes. Whereas the first view is like just a slit. A slit. And then the view C is just wider shoulder rectangles, which give you Well, that's what I'm wearing. It's a l it's lower down. And that's this version over here, the the the sweatshirty version behind me. Yeah. So you're wearing a mixture of No, you're wearing just View B. I'm wearing View B here. Yeah. ⁓ the sheared one here is a mixture of View B and View A, 'cause it's got the shearing on the bottom. ⁓ I didn't do the only bit that I didn't try was View A's neckline. And that's because I tend to prefer more of an open neckline. I'm not a really high neckline. And this comes up high enough on me as it is. I think if I was doing View A, I would feel it was too high high for me personally. I knew that when I saw that. I thought Gemma's not gonna make this one. No. Just starting to learn which ones I I will will make. And we w we're also looking at the colours of the tops hanging behind us, weren't we, Carly, and knowing that well, there'll be some kind of theme running. Well look, this one's different. Yeah, true, true. Also, ⁓ so the view you see, typically in the picture here, it has sleeves. It does. And then you have options for the sleeves. So you've got long sleeves, you've got short sleeves, and you've got ⁓ the elasticated ⁓ balloon type of sleeve, which I guess this is what I'm wearing now. Yeah. And you know, I've put elastic in the bottom of that but really loosely because I didn't want it to feel too tight in the bottom of the sleeves. ⁓ but I've made another one with like a sweatshirt fabric that is just completely open. Yes. And on the front of the pattern you can actually see she's put all the different ⁓ combinations together. So you can s you know, you can see what they would look like. Shearing, different necklines, different sleeves. It's very, very versatile. Yeah. I I gotta say, I went through a lot of journey with this. Did you? Because I it f see you can see it has ⁓ no elastic in the waistband right now. Yeah. I mean not the waistband, in the bottom hand. But it at first it had the elastic at the hem and then I had the sleeves with no elastic. And then this I added elastic later. So I added elastic along this front bit because I I guess I'm hunch I don't know, because it's a rectangle top. So it like f the front and the back are equal. There's no sort of ⁓ you know, adjustment for like a forward shoulder or anything like that. And we all sort of do when we're sitting, we sort of have a bit of more of a forward shoulder. So yeah, that just it was a little bit ga it was gaping a little bit more. So how did you add it as an afterthought? Did you create a channel? Yeah, I just like I want to go and look inside your top, but that might be a bit ⁓ inappropriate. Well, I don't want you to look inside because it's not the best. So I d literally just like cut a little hole. Yeah. Like just in the binding. Yeah, I just cut a little hole on one l layer of the binding and I sh thread it through and then I just sewed it into the side seams. That's really interesting because I had one of the students in my class tried my Vue C on and she said, I really like it, but I feel like it's gonna fall off my shoulders, you know, because it's a bit more open at the neckline. So I think if you feel like that, that's actually a really good solution just to stop it from doing It kind of like makes a nice like shape. Like it kind of curves in a nice little way. And it's very cool. Yeah. But ⁓ yeah, so after I had put the elastic here, I was like, ⁓ there's too much el like this and this, I just felt like too much elastic. And it felt like too puffy. I agree. I think it needed to be elastic in the sleeve or elastic in the hem. Yes. Otherwise it does feel a bit too balloony almost. Yeah, balloony, yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. So shall we talk a little bit about ⁓ sewing therapy? Yes. we were lucky enough to get the chance to speak with ⁓ Sarah from Sewing Therapy. Lovely. Yes. ⁓ And you might know her ⁓ more online as ⁓ her Instagram handle is your Sarah K. And that's how I personally know her and and her YouTube is also that. But sewing therapy is the name of her patterns. Her patterns, that's right. Yeah. and as we said, like they're all quite they're all fairly beginner friendly, I would say. and yeah, it was really awesome to be able to get to s to speak to her. Yeah. yeah, one of the first things we asked Sarah was about her Instagram handle. your Sarah Kay. Okay, so first of all Thank you so much for saying that about my handle, like your Sarah. I actually created the username back ⁓ when I was like twenty, nineteen, twenty. I remember thinking that ⁓ starting with your sounded so warm and lovely. And I'm so glad it still resonates with people that way today. And yeah, you're absolutely right. ⁓ a few years ago I fell in love with ⁓ discovering independence. And my biggest joy was making video tutorials to help beginner sewists build up their ⁓ confidence and sew along with me. To be honest, these days, my time for making full-length YouTube videos is a lot more limited. ⁓ From a practical and business standpoint, making videos alone couldn't sustain me. ⁓ creating and selling my own patterns is what actually funds my business, allowing me to keep designing like what I love and of course buy more fabrics. Okay, of course. I haven't stopped making videos at all. I've just shifted a lot of that energy into pure form content. ⁓ creating videos is something I truly enjoy and have loved for a long time. Whereas making patterns is a ⁓ new love ⁓ that I've deeply fallen for. They really go hand in hand for me now. Well she's nailing it, the making patterns, even if it isn't a new venture. She's right, yeah. But have you looked at her YouTube videos? There's so many resources there. Yeah, amazing. She's done sew alongs for like a lot of really popular patterns that are still popular today. and the idea is that you would sew it while watching the video. Which I didn't understand until we spoke to her about that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, I don't really do that. Do you sew and watch videos at the same time? No, I really would struggle with that, I think. It's I'm more of a listener when I sew rather than a a a watcher. Yeah. How about how about you, Carly the same? Yeah, more of a listener. And that's kind of why we started the podcast. But you know, obviously people want to see us as well. People are actually watching as well. Yeah. So maybe you can watch along And so and listen to the podcast in video form. I don't know. Absolutely. Yeah. We'll see how that goes. Yeah. ⁓ but she's really creating ⁓ such a beginner-friendly ⁓ you know, platform really in her business in terms of her patterns and all the resources that come with those. So yeah, it's it's it's great. So ⁓ Sarah lives in Canada, but is originally from Korea. and I think that has inspired a lot of her design. She has a range called the Handbox. Domin range. Yeah. So we also a little bit about that. Hanbog is the traditional Korean attire with thousands of years of history, as you all know. ⁓ what makes it so unique is that it's based on flat, ⁓ straight line pattern making. Unlike Western clothing that is tailored to fit the body's curves closely, handbog naturally wraps around the body, creating beautiful flowing silhouettes. That are incredibly comfortable and elegant. ⁓ But I wouldn't say I designed these patterns from scratch myself. ⁓ That's why at the time I called myself more as a pattern maker than a pattern designer. Modern handbook is already incredibly popular in Korea. People wear it all the time. The design itself has become a timeless, shared classic, so it doesn't belong to any single designer. ⁓ This journey actually started years ago when I was importing fabrics from a Korean brand called Daily Like. They had physical patterns for a humbook dress and skirt. But when those got discontinued, so many of my customers asked me to bring them back. At the time I had absolutely no knowledge of pattern making, so I sadly couldn't do anything about it. But years later, once I finally built up the skills and confidence to draft patterns, I made a promise to myself I'm going to bring the humble patterns to life. While the core aesthetic is a classic design that already existed, my main challenge was to translate. And expand the sizing. Traditionally, these patterns were drafted for smaller Korean sizing standards. So I worked hard to adopt and create them to fit Western standards, offering a full size ranging from size range from US sizes, zero to twenty-four, which translates to Australian size is four to twenty eight. Yeah, it gives it a really sort of ⁓ interesting ⁓ kind of background to the patterns. Makes them a little bit different, I guess, as well. I love it when people are sharing, you know, traditional garments with us Westerners. Yeah. ⁓ because And making it accessible. Yeah, exactly. yeah. Absolutely. ⁓ and and you know, it also comes so I remember she First brought out the skirt and then there's a dress and a coat, which is part of the handbok range. Yes. And we can see how, you know, rectangles or straight cutting patterns kind of translate into this rectangle top as well. Yeah. Which is her own, you know, her own pattern. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we should really get to talking about the rectangle top. Yes. we did ask Sarah about what inspired her to design the rectangle top. Okay, I had like this very old, super comfortable t shirt that I've been ⁓ wearing for years. It's basically shaped like a long, like simple rectangle with a scooped neckline. Every time I wore it in my short videos, my audience ⁓ commented, ⁓ my gosh, that tap is so beautiful. What pattern is that? So I really wanted so I really wanted to create a similar look. for my community. But there was a challenge. My old tub was made of like made of thin stretched knit fabric. And as we all know, finishing a knit neckline with bias binding can be incredibly challenging, right? Frustrating for beginners. I can't imagine making this with knit, yeah. No, no. Not not yeah, not like a curly You know, like the knit that rolls at the edges, it would be ⁓ Yeah. Maybe the view A would be easy enough. Yeah but ⁓ when you get into the view B and C it would be frustrating. Technically that would be a knit. That's like a sweatshirt fabric. That is very stable. Very stable and very easy. Yeah. And also I didn't use the binding I cut out of a woven. That's right. On the bias so it's still stretched. Yeah. I'm very proud of you for doing all of these types. And what there's one that you didn't bring in, is there? There's two more I didn't bring in. Wow. But you made that's four here. So you made six. Yeah, I did. But I I think I couldn't remember I lost count a little bit. I think I'm I'm on my sixth at home and I'd tell you why I made so many of them. I found because they were so easy, it's the kind of sewing you can do without thinking. And my s I have a l lucky enough to have a sewing room rather than a third child. I it's my third baby, my sewing room. And so And when I'm putting the kids to bed at night, they're a bit older now, so I don't need to be quite as hands-on as perhaps we once were. And I can be in my sewing room often just like, you know, I'm just in here, you know, go clean your teeth, whatever it needs to be. But I can also be sewing. But it's the kind of pattern that once you'd made one, you didn't really need to be thinking too hard about it. I could cut out rectangles earlier on in the day, have it ready to sew sitting on my machine, and pretty much have one done in two nights, you know. Yeah. so I don't know, it just kinda lends itself to I found really therapeutic sewing. I didn't have to worry about the fitting. Yep. ⁓ and so I kinda got into, you know, a bit of a bit of a roll with just, you know, ⁓ I'll make another one. And I've there's so little fabric needed as well. So Yeah. Yeah. I was surprised at how little fabric because I didn't think that I would be able to cut the VC with the long sleeves out of the small bit of fabric that I had. ⁓ so I just thought I'll start cutting the bodice and I'll see how I go and I might make the short sleeve, but I ended up getting the full long sleeve version with this tiny little bit of fabric, which was a some kind of off cut from something else as well. Yeah. No, it's really good. It's a it's a good scrap buster. Yeah, totally. And you could use different fabrics. Like you could have 'cause you've got this panel, this panel, this panel. You could you know you could mix and mix it up a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. so yeah, I think that's why I got into the, you know, into the throws of making many of them. And I think the like various different options that you've got with the with the pattern all seemed quite appealing and I kind of wanted to give it a go. And the white one I actually made specifically to go with something. Okay. So ⁓ it's the kind of top that if you make something and you're like, well I just need a top to go with this. You can just kind of like run it off real quick. I should have made a white one. I had white and blue fabric and I was like, which one I'm gonna make? And I made the blue one and then you know, I regret it. I should have made the white one. Why do you regret the blue one? Okay. Well well this brings me to think about, you know, it's gotten a little bit cold lately. I've been wearing that Aura top, or Ara coat. ⁓ like that fluffy one. And then you mentioned that you don't really wear yours and it's and then it's like it's never the pattern. It's not the pattern ever. The reason why you don't reach for things or don't wear them is because of the choice of the fabric with the pattern, right? Mm-hmm. And yeah, so like the wrong choice of fabric can alter how much you wear that thing. Yeah. And yeah, so I made a wrong choice with this blue because it kinda reminds me of scrubs. Yeah. Do you remember the the the twirl that I did of the jumpsuit? Yes. And that was in light blue. Yes. And I felt like I was in Scrubs. Yes. Or some kind of prison suits. I don't know. But then when I made it with a pattern, I was like, ⁓ now I love this. Yes. Yes. So like that that's the difference. You know, you y you nail the pattern and the colour and the fabric base. Yeah. And then you'll wear it all the time. Yeah. And then if you just get one of those things wrong, then it's yeah is the other thing. Yeah, that's right. I think there's kind of three things. You've got the fit, the fabric. And the what was the other thing? The colour. The colour, sorry. Like the the colour or the print. Yeah. ⁓ and the fit and the actual like drape. Yeah, the drape. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not nor it's usually not the pattern. Like the pattern's usually sort of you know, it's the choice that you put with the pattern that makes it a winner or not. And what I really liked about this pattern as well is, you know, I think we all have our little alterations and things that we have to make with most patterns. Like you were saying earlier, I definitely have a forward shoulder and I definitely need to do a sway back. I definitely have no hips at the top, so I have to flatten the hip curve. You know, all these things we have to do. But with this pattern, it's really quite instinctive making those alterations because we're dealing with rectangles. So we kind of alterations. No, I didn't. But you easily could, right? Because she actually says in the pattern, if you want to make the neckline bigger, then you then you move the rectangle out. Yes. If you want to make it lower, then you make your rectangle bigger. And vice versa. So it's really instinctive for someone that's just starting out to be able to make those changes because you can physically see that neck hole getting bigger and smaller just by moving your rectangles. And you can kind of put it on too. Because you sort of make it flat. Yeah. And then the side seams are sort of like the last part that you do. So you're kind of like just constructing the neckline. That's basically the first few steps. And then you can put it on, see how much I don't know, see how much coverage you have, or if you want more or less, you can make those changes. And the fact that the binding in there isn't actually really like it's not biased binding. It's just A strip of fabric. Because it's all stretched. On the straight. Yeah. It doesn't need to stretch around anything. So again that's why it's good for beginners. Because there's no stretchy bias. There's no stretchy bias and you need very little fabric as well. Because you're not cutting through the forty five degree angle of the fabric. Yeah. ⁓ and so many options. So many options. And just the kind of like I was saying before, you can make it to go with things because it's kind of like A top that just fits in with many things, you know, like with jeans or whatever, like we're wearing today, with a skirt. ⁓ I had someone in one of my classes want to make a longer version of it to be able to tuck it in. Yep. And again, really easy alterations to make. Yeah. ⁓ well, you know, looking at your three just hanging up there and the one you're wearing, they don't I mean, I can tell that they're the same pattern, but I don't think a regular person that doesn't sew would be able to know that they're got anything to do with each other. And if I was wearing these on different days, people aren't gonna be like, ⁓ That's the same top as you were wearing three days ago, you know, that you you separate them out. So they look different. Yeah, totally. But they've got a really casual feel to them as well. And I and I quite you know, it makes a c a nice change to be wearing something that's not ⁓ you know, that's easy to wear. It's n I mean, the fact that it's got no bust arts or anything like that, but it still kind of fits. I think the elastic bringing in in at the bottom. ⁓ but if you don't like that, then you can just have it more out and loose is yeah, it's ⁓ there's a whole load of Options. And with the elastic you can have it as like tight. This isn't tight. No. But you can have it tight so that you could, you know, it can Yeah. It can be holding. Yeah. Or you can have it just gathering. You know, you can have elastic that's pulling in a little bit, just to cinch it in a little bit. But it's not tight on your body. I did elastic with this jersey version. And like you, I me I left it quite loose and easy to wear. It just brought the sleeve in a little bit 'cause being a rectangle is quite big. at the opening where the arm where your arm comes out. ⁓ so I did a little bit just to bring it in, but it wasn't a h a huge amount. And it's a s yeah, it was easy to wear. But like you say, you can make it tighter. There's there's lots of things that you can can definitely do. I imagine this version would be really nice in like a silk. Yeah. For a night out. Yeah. Absolutely. You could get it uses so little fabric. I reckon you could get a beautiful silk scarf from like ⁓ A thrift store or your auntie's closet, I don't know, wherever you get silk scarves from. ⁓ because they're everywhere. Yeah. And I reckon you could make a top out of that. Yeah. This would be really, really nice because you're not dealing with bias. No. You're just dealing with a strip. Yeah. That's a challenge. If someone does that, I want to see it. I think the biggest challenge in this making this garment is the bias binding and just layering up You know, it's it's very clear in the instructions, but just layering up the order of, you know, the main top, the rect the shoulder rectangles, then the bias and how it wraps around. That's probably the most challenging bit. But it is pretty pretty straightforward, I would say. But it's nothing like buttonholes or zips or anything like that. And if it goes wrong, you unpick it. So you say it's not like a buttonhole that's gonna, you know, completely throw everything off course. It's it's gonna be fine. And when you're cutting it, you don't you know You could cut extras little strips because it's only like a little thin strip. Yeah. And, you know, it's not using a lot of fabric 'cause you're cutting on the bias. You could cut like extra strips if you were a beginner, ⁓ if you thought you might need to unpick something, and then you could just ditch that little bit of strip and use a new one rather than try and re-sewing that little strip that's been unpicked and everything. Yeah. And another tip I would give as for for beginners is to definitely make your own binding rather than buying it, because nine times out of ten when you might walk into a certain store. ⁓ you've will buy your bias binding, but they heavily tend to starch it, which makes it quite rough. Yep. And not necessarily nice to wear against your skin. That's right. Whereas if you cut your own, it's going to be a lot softer to wear and it's going to match with the fabric. Yes. ⁓ I think when it comes to clothes, it's definitely worth making your own. I think we've said this. ⁓ definitely. Because it's going to wash the same too. Exactly. You're what you're wanting with your bias, if you are using different fabric, is a fabric that's going to match with your main fabric as closely as possible. so you know, if you are using a different scrap of bias binding or binding strip of fabric in this case, ⁓ then you want to try and be picking something that's going to be most similar to the fabric that you're actually making the main top out of. Yeah. That's a good tip. Let's talk about the fact that it's not in the instructions. It's not in the instructions. on view B and C. Neither of us made view A. View A is so simple that we're not even really going to mention that one. yeah, so view B, ⁓ you sew the binding on and then the binding is there just to enclose the raw seams. ⁓ now it's meant to just be double folded and edge stitched. That's what it says in the pattern. Yes. I just prefer to understitch which is just one more row of stitches. and the purpose of understitching is so that when, you know, you press it to the right side, I mean the wrong side, the side that's meant to go on, it naturally sort of pulls everything to the wrong side and or, you know, the inside of the garment, which gives a nice finish, but also gives a little bit more structure, I think. It does. So it's to make sure that all the seam allowances and everything are ⁓ I guess being pulled away from the main body of the garment and you catch that in the in the under stitching. Yes. And you basically do a row of stitching along the binding part, which is gonna be on the wrong side of the garment. Yeah. And that, like you say, encourages that bit of binding to go to the wrong side of the fabric and not be shown at all on the outside. So you get a nice clean finish. You get a clean finish. And it while maybe it's not essential, because obviously it's not in the instructions, I do think it just helps, as you say, to add a bit of structure Make sure that that binding stays on the inside and gives you a nice crisp finish. Yeah. ⁓ and I would definitely recommend iron too. It's easy. Everything just goes together better. I agree. So that would be a a good tip, I think. Yeah, I'm gonna get a t shirt that says don't skip the understitch. Yeah, I like Because that's like my f motto. Yeah. Cause I feel like I not that I ever do, but I feel like if I did skip if you do it's not so bad. Okay, look, it's not that noticeable on like a flat ⁓ neckline. But if you'd skip the understitch on a curved neckline, then I'm gonna be seeing that. You can just see it. Yeah, you can see that. You're gonna and you're gonna know all about it. You're not necessarily gonna know why the inside is wanting to flip round to the front, but that will be the reason. There's no stitches anchoring that to the right side. So that's really important. And what about grading? Because I also graded my. I did grade, yeah. What was the seam allowance on this? It's one centimetre. I should know that scene as I've made so many. ⁓ yeah, one centimetre. So you're not going to grade it huge amount, but when we talk about grading, we're basically talking about reducing one of the seams more than the other. Because sometimes what happens when you've got two seams that are finishing in the same place and then you press it, you get this kind of like mark on the right side of the fabric because it's too thick. Well, there's three layers at the Yes. Yeah, there's three layers here. Exactly. And there's two layers at the open neckline. So I feel like it needed it. It needed just to be w at least one. I mean I would I think what I did I I'll start again. What I did was I reduced them all slightly and then I took one down again slightly. So they weren't. So you really did like steps. Step so to create like a step so it's more smooth when you when you press it. Yeah, so there's not like a big junky ridge. Exactly right. Yeah. But it really just depends on the fabric too. It will. Yeah. Like I really needed to do it with that. You can imagine. Like it was really lofty. Yeah. ⁓ and that's why the binding could not be made out of the same thing, because it would have been super chunky. Yes. Well, yeah, that's like is it like a quilted knit? It's the same fabric that I made the jacket out of. ⁓ okay. But it was left over. A different colour. And then I just managed to find some sweatshirt fabric to match well enough for the sleeves because I didn't have enough and I wanted to do a long I've seen you wear that. It looks lovely on. Thank you. And you've been wearing that a bit, haven't you? ⁓ do you know, honestly, I have this kind of rule that I think I've spoken about before, which is that the the photo shoot has to happen before I'll just freely wear these things because I just have this idea. I live in fear of, you know, spilling something down it or I don't know. Or washing it too many times and looking not looking quite so good. So I'm dying to wear this more regularly, but it's I have worn it. Yeah. And then I was like, no, put it back on the hanger, Gemma, wait until the photo shoot's done and then go for your life. So I've tried this on with a few things. Like I tried it on with that Aura coat thing. Cause the little s these ⁓ sleeves just poke out the edges. And it's like the the the fluffy and like this this fabric. I should talk about this fabric a little bit. So it's It was black linen. It was just a scrap of black linen that I had left over. Okay. And then I got bleach. And then I well slightly like laid it out on my laundry table. And I got bleach in like squeeze bottle type things. Cool. And then just like put sort of like stripes of bleach on it. And then I came back, you know, an hour later, and I'd realized that I'd gone a bit heavy-handed with some. And less with the others. I guess when I first started I was being a little bit more ⁓ I did film it, so maybe I could, you know, put some of that up somewhere so people can see. ⁓ yeah, and then I was like, ⁓ well now it's more blonde. I guess it's like bleaching your hair. It's like blonde on one side and it was kind of like, you know, when you bleach your hair and it's like orange. So I was like, ⁓ I don't like that side as much as that side. So then I went and did it again, and then I did on both, and then I'm like, Okay, and now and I think I did it three times. So then it's kind of like layered. You see how some bits like a bit orangey and some bits are more like blondish? I love all the different colours. I kind of think it looks a bit like fire. It does. I think it's awesome. I had no idea that you'd have done that yourself. I assumed you brought it like that. It looks so good. Yeah, I wanted to give it a go. Yeah. And ⁓ we nailed Then it was fun to sort of cut out the pieces and decide what what's going to be the front, what's going to be the sleeves. And yeah, you can see the sleeves are sort of different to the So what inspired that? What made you think, I'm gonna get bleach, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just squeeze it all over the front? What made you decide to do that? ⁓ I don't know. I saw something one time, I think it was like a tie-dye guy, and he like bleaches, he gets like black hoodies and he bleaches like a design, and then he dyes over the bleached areas and it looked really cool. and I guess I thought if I bleach it and it looks terrible, I could just die over it. But I I like how it turned out. I think it's awesome. But yeah. Sorry, we should also talk about sharing as well. ⁓ yes. Because I didn't even attempt that. The binding was the most tricky part, but I would say if you go for the shearing, it's not tricky but it definitely takes a little bit of setting up and getting everything, you know, ready to go. So sharing is I always call I say sharing, but I'm probably just being the Aussie version. Yeah, I I say it wrong obviously because Shearing, shearing. Yeah. But yeah, it's where you have ⁓ you you probably seen it on like ⁓ rayon skirts and things like that where there's rows of thin lines of stitches and then the back has a thin elastic th that kind of cinches it all in. But it's like Many rows. You can actually buy pre shred, sheared fabric if you don't want to have to go through the process. Yeah, you can. ⁓ that'd be great. Yeah. That'd be hard to cut out. Yeah. It's like if you if you want to really half done dress basically and you're gonna use it like the boob tube section. And I think the bottom half of the fabric is often not sheared. Right. So it's kind of Okay. Yeah, anyway. ⁓ but no It's it's easy enough to do, but it does take a little bit of setting up. Yes. So and there's different ways of going about it as well. So the way I did it, ⁓ I hand wound on my you need a special thread, first of all. You need an elastic thread just in the bobbin, not in the top of your machine. And I just hand wound the elastic onto the bobbin. And you need to be careful not to be putting on Too much tension, but just enough so it's going firmly onto the bottom. That's why you hand wind it. And that's why we hand wind it, because it would be too much on on, you know, if you were doing it by the meat. Yeah, yeah. It's not it's not gonna work. You're caught up and getting tangled. Yeah. And then the really important thing that you have to do is you don't just go straight into the top shearing part. You then get yourself some scrap fabric. You draw the lines out neatly. I think it's one and a half centimetres apart, whatever you're deciding you want to do. And you need to test a few lines. And there's a few on the same fabric. On the same fabric, because it's going to be different depending on the thickness and the drape of the fabric. ⁓ and there's a few things you can play with to get tighter or looser, you know, sheared fabric, basically. Stitch length is one and machine tension is the other. So play around with that. You know, go to the I would sort of put it at a length four and put the tension up. quite high, see what you get. If it's too tight and you don't want it to be as tight as that, then loosen your tension a little bit. You know, see what your results are do a few different rows and see what you like the look of. You know, what are you wanting to get out of your ⁓ your shearing? You know, how do you do you want it to be really tight or a bit more ⁓ loose? ⁓ but you want to make sure that when you then actually sew onto the top that you're doing I did four rows, you can do as many as you like, four rows, five rows, whatever. They're all the same because if they're not the same, then the top the the sides of the top will kind of not be straight. And did you do you do the front and the back and then join the side seams or do you do it in a circle? I did it the front and the back and join the side seams, but you probably could do it in a circle. I don't see why you couldn't do that. And then you wouldn't have to worry about joining up those lines on the side seam. and then also the really fiddly part is making sure that you've tied all your elastics off. at the end. You can back tack, but I actually also tie all of mine off and then you have to ca make sure you catch them all in the seam allowance 'cause otherwise you end up with one. I don't wanna I wanna touch this Don't don't look too closey. It's still got lines drawn on it because I haven't actually worn that one. They're the lines that I followed. Whoop, whoop, whoop. Yeah. That's awesome. It feels very and that feels cool. That fabric, I've actually made a skirt out of it as well. Not to wear together necessarily, but you'll see I've actually pieced together at the back there. Can you see the seam running down the back? I didn't have enough. And being a rectangle is like, well, I'll just make it big enough. And that's what I decided. And that's the great the great thing about this top. This is the kind of fabric that you would do it with. You wouldn't do it with anything. This is like a rayon. It's a rayon, yeah. So it's really lightweight, really drapey. It it g it gathers up so when you shear it, it looks like how you want it to. Because you want it to kind of be fairly tight and you know, come in nicely. So you want a lightweight fabric really for shearing. You don't want anything. You're not gonna do it ⁓ you could do it with a linen, but I don't think it would be quite the same. Lightweight. Well, this is very lightweight. You can do A lightweight linen would be fine, nothing too heavy. Yeah. Otherwise it'll just Because that elastic thread is very it's not super strong elastic. It really needs to be not creating too much tension, otherwise it'll just lose its elasticity after a couple of wears and you do worth all that time and then it'll be gone. And also you do need to do a few rows as well. I think you're not you can't rely on like one or two rows. I think it's better to have a a few together. It kind of works more like a a waistband or whatever when you've got a few chunked together. How much elastic do you use? Do you just use one spool? Yeah, probably about one spool. You use more than you probably think you're going to, but one for that I would say one spool will get you get you through usually. Do you teach that in your class? Well, if somebody makes that top, absolutely and that's the beauty of I guess the second stitches people can actually pick what they want to make. And then we work through those skills. 'Cause you know, everyone wants to do something different. We've all got a different you know, different idea of what we want to make and what we want to wear. So that's kind of the idea. So is it a surprise to you what they're gonna walk in with? mm, not usually. So they normally when they book on they will select their pattern and then I will often have it ready for them. Okay. ⁓ but there is also an option to bring your own pattern. So if you've already got one then you you bring that along. So yeah. That sounds so fun. ⁓ we should do our Yeah we might do our three words now and I think ⁓ yeah, that's right. ⁓ so one of my favourite bits of the interview with ⁓ Sarah was when she talked about the three words to describe Sewing therapy. Yeah, it's one of the questions we ask most of our ⁓ pattern makers and ⁓ yeah, it was really lovely. If I had to choose three words, they would be thoughtful, romantic, and timeless. ⁓ but actually I recently asked my audience this same question and ⁓ they shared some beautiful words like ⁓ fertile and connected. ⁓ some more but But the one that truly touched my heart was enjoyable. Yeah. Knowing that my parents make the actual sewing process a truly enjoyable experience for people is ⁓ the best feeling in the world. How nice is that. Well you must have enjoyed it because you made so many. Absolutely. Absolutely. ⁓ yeah, I really did enjoy making them. This is a winner for me. I really like that gingham on you wearing. Yeah, I think this is my favourite actually. That and the the jersey one there. So what was the outfit you made that white one for? ⁓ well I'm I'm gonna talk about that in our next episode. Sorry, I made it to go with the skirt for that. So shall I talk about I can't talk about that now because that's next time. I won't mention that, but what I'll say, ⁓ that white one that you made, I feel like that would go really nice with Sarah's new pattern, the pinafore pattern. Have you seen it? Yes, I have seen it. Yeah. It's so sweet. It's like a it's a pinafore. dress, but the pin the bib is like under the bust. Yeah. Instead of, you know, over the bust. And yeah, I saw a mum at school wearing something like that one day and I thought, ⁓ that's so nice. But I'd never really seen a pattern for it. And then Sarah's got this pattern. and yeah, I feel like that would go so nicely out. It has to probably be one of our sews for a sojo episode for sure. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. When it gets a bit cooler. A bit cooler. mean warmer. Warmer. Warmer. Yeah, it's a bit bit cold right now here in Brisbane. It's real cold right now. Well, cold by our stand cold by our standards. Yeah. Everyone else that lives in actual cold places would laugh if they actually looked at the temperature, especially in the middle of the day. It feels cold to us. It's cold for us, yes. So ratings. Ratings. Okay. So let's start with size. Well, speaking of sizes, I made a medium. Did you make a small or a medium? I did make a small. I should have made a small for that for that one. I made a medium for this, which I liked. I like I wanted it to be oversized. But the size ranges from extra small to three XL. Or give that a four and a half. Yeah. And price is pretty reasonable. It's a very reasonable price. Yeah. ⁓ but it's still not like one dollar sign. No, it's I'd still say it's like on the low end of two dollar signs. Yeah, two two dollar signs, lower end of two. ⁓ and the instructions, I think they were great, but also we know that she has all that YouTube resource and everything. So I think we have to give her four marks for that. Five. Yeah. And ⁓ there is a sew along version of this pattern. So you can actually watch Sarah sew from start to finish. And you know, that's that's everything you'll ever need. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all there. and drafting. I mean it's it's rectangles. Yes. So it's fairly straightforward, but it's been drafted really well. And thoughtfully added all these ⁓ additional things. Yeah. So you're getting a lot from this one pattern. So it's very good. Yeah. So we give that a five? Yes. Alright Kylie, how many sewing club stamps do we give it? We give this one five sewing club stamps.