Bat Wing Top

Polka Dots and Stripes

I often buy baggy style clothing in the name of ease and comfort, then feel like I am out in public in my night gown. That was the situation with the dress below, I bought it because it was fun and whimsical but it turned out I looked like I was only my way to a pajama party.


I still like the whimsical part of the garment, so I am going to re-purpose it into something a bit more bat wing-ish and fitted in the hips.



You can re-purpose any dress into a bat wing top, great for garments that no longer fit in the waist but still hold some mystique. All you will need is some additional fabric to make the sleeves and waist/hip and arm bands.

NEED TO PURCHASE: You will need 1 meter of 4 way stretch fabric for the sleeves and a half meter for the waist/hip and sleeve band.



STEP 1: You will need to cut 2 bat wing pattern pieces. I used some large sketching newsprint, but you can use what you have on hand. These pieces you can adjust based on your height and hip size. This pattern will fit a 5' 8" person with a hip size of 40". The "bat top front/back" pattern piece is 8" wide at the top, 4" wide at the bottom, 29" on one side and 26", with a curve at the top of the pattern piece, 4" in and 3" down for the neck.


STEP 2: The "bat wing top sleeves" pattern piece is in the basic shape of a right angle triangle, where the right angle sides are 29" and 16" and the hypotenuse is approx. 33". You are going to cut off the non 90 degree angle points of your triangle to accommodate for a 6" hip opening (the front and back piece account for most of the hip opening) and a 5" sleeve opening.


STEP 3: Place your sleeve piece on your fabric and cut, flip the pattern piece and cut the other sleeve. You should end up with 4 cut pieces.


STEP 4: Layout your re-purposed garment as flat as possible, place your front/back pattern piece on the garment. Cut only the outside edges, keeping the centre of the garment in tact. Flip the pattern piece and cut the opposite side of the garment.


STEP 5: Sew the sleeves to the front and back top pieces. Then sew the bottom and top seams of the sleeve together.

STEP 6: Cut a 8" x 40" piece for the waist/hip band, and a 8" x 8" piece for the sleeve band.

STEP 7: Sew the waist/hip band and sleeve band to the garment and finish seams with a serger if you have.

Comments

  1. AlexMarch 4, 2015 at 8:15 AM

    This is a great re-purpose! The batwing sleeves make it much more hip

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jill CharbonneauMarch 4, 2015 at 5:25 PM

    Hip indeed Ali! I am going to try it again with a vivi Boutique dress find.

    ReplyDelete

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