DIY Square Neck Top + Pants | Creating a Pattern & Easy Sewing!

Hello there, welcome back to my channel. In this video, I'm going to show you how I made this square neck top and pants set. I'm going to take you through the whole process of tracing a pattern from a tank top and pants that you probably have in your closet to sewing the set from start to finish. This project is beginner friendly and so fun, so let's get started. For the pattern, I put on this cotton tank top. The first thing I'm doing is figuring out where I want to crop my top. I have a short torso, so I am usually cropping my tops by a little bit. So I'm folding the shirt up where I want the hem to be and I'm going to pin it in place. Next, I'm checking if this shirt is the right amount of flowy and I actually love how flowy this top is. Next, for the neckline, I'm going to take a pin and I'm going to mark where I want the square neckline to be. I don't know how I didn't stab myself right then. Moving on to the pants. These pants are also pretty flowy, so I'm not going to make any changes there, but what I do always check is where the crotch lands. Sometimes the crotch is a little bit too high and, you know, it's just not a desirable look. I'm also checking where the waist hits and this is about at my belly button, which is fine with me. These pants have elastic in the back half and again, I like the amount of stretch that these have. The last thing I'm checking is the length. I look like a boy from the 1800s. I'm making a mental note that I'm going to add like 9 or 10 inches onto my pants. Now, taking some pattern paper, I'm going to start with my top. I'm folding it in half with the front of the shirt facing up. I'm going to line that folded edge up to the edge of my paper and I'm just going to trace it all around where the seam lines are exactly. I'm drawing my new shortened hem and then I'm just making sure my lines are nice and straight. Now, grabbing my shirt again, I'm going to figure out where my neckline was going to end and I'm going to mark my square neckline. I also felt like this needed a little bit more added to the width and also that shoulder looked a little too slanted, so I'm kind of straightening this to give it more of a 90 degree angle. You always want to aim for 90 degree angles when you're pattern making whenever you can. Now, taking a different color pen, I'm going to draw my half an inch seam allowance all around and at the bottom, I'm going to add one inch for hem allowance. And the good news is the back of the shirt is the exact same pattern piece as the front. So, I'm just making one pattern piece for the shirt. Moving on to the pants, I'm going to lay the pants out with the front side facing up and I'm folding the seam lines under so that I could trace around the seam lines exactly. So, I'm going to start tracing all around and as you can see on that outer leg seam, there's like an inch or so of fabric that we need to add in order to trace the seam lines exactly where they are. So, I'm going to add that inch or so and then kind of taper it up following the seam lines with my fingers. Now, for the waistband, when you're tracing a pattern with elastic, you always want to make sure you're pulling on the elastic to trace the width exactly and add in that extra room that you'll need for the elastic. So, I'm just pulling on the elastic and trying my best to mark the width exactly as it is and then I'm just tapering and blending those lines all the way down and in order to not look like a boy from the 1800s, I'm going to add those nine inches onto the length and last, I'm just taking a ruler and straightening my lines all around. I'm also adding half an inch seam allowance to the side seam, the inseam, and the crotch seam. For the bottom, I'm going to add one inch for hem allowance and for the waistband, I'm going to add two inches. So, you just need to add whatever width elastic you're using times two. So, I'm using one inch wide elastic, so I'll add two inches of room. So, now that our seam allowance is all added, we can go ahead and cut this pattern piece out. For the backside of the pants, I'm going to trace this front pattern piece as a basic guide and then I'm going to lay the pants down with the backside facing up and just make sure that I have enough room for the backside of the pants. Because there is a booty on the backside, if you pull out the fabric and follow that seam line exactly, you can always tell that there's like one or two or more inches added on just to give extra room for the booty. And then I'm going to add my half an inch seam allowance. That definitely needed to be a little more straight, so I'm fixing that line and now I'll cut this out. And I always like to put the two pattern pieces together and just make sure that they look right. And in this moment, I could tell that the front side of the pants just needed to be a little bit wider, so I'm just adding some scrap pieces of paper on there so that I can add a little bit more width to the front side of my pants. I'll cut my new pattern piece out and the most important thing, you always want to make sure the front and the backside match in length at the side seam as well as the inseam. Because those will be connected later on, those always need to match in length. And if you want to hold these pattern pieces up to yourself and just make extra sure that they're going to fit, go right ahead. Now let's cut our pattern pieces. So I found this lovely 100% cotton on Fabric Wholesale Direct, which is an online fabric store. I love, love, love them. I'm going to link this fabric below. I'm going to fold my fabric in half, right sides together, and I'm going to lay my front pants piece down. I want to make sure that this pattern is symmetrical on both sides of my body, so I'm being very careful to line this pattern piece up exactly where I want it. And I'll cut my two pants pattern pieces out. I also want to add pockets to this pattern, so I'm just tracing my hand into somewhat of a pocket shape, making sure there's half an inch room for seam allowance all around, and I'll cut it out. And we need four pocket pieces. Okay, now we just have to cut our top pieces. We need to cut the top on the fold, as you can see here on the pattern. I marked fold. This is going give us a nice symmetrical cut. I'm also cutting this on a specific part of the little geometric pattern, and I'll cut the back top piece the same exact way. Let's start sewing our top. I'll put my top pieces right sides together, again making sure that the little geometric print is perfectly aligned, and I'm going to pin down the side seams and the shoulder seams. Now taking it to the sewing machine, I'll sew down the side seams and the shoulder seams using a normal straight stitch. If you want to prevent these seams from fraying, you could finish them with a zigzag stitch, pinking shears. I went ahead and serged the edges, as you can see. And now, as any good sewist does, we're going to press our seams nice and flat. So I'm pressing the shoulder seams and the side seams. Now we need to finish the raw edges all around, along the bottom, along that square neckline, and the armholes. So for the bottom, this could be easy. You could just do a regular hem at the bottom. However, this is when I realized that my shirt was going to be so short it would fit an infant child, so I grabbed my handy dandy bias tape. I'm using half an inch wide double fold bias tape to finish all of the raw edges on this top. Bias tape is really easy to use. You just open it up and place it right sides together against the raw edge. This will make more sense as we go, so just be patient. When I get to the end, I'm going to give myself extra room and cut it. I'll do the same exact thing for the armholes. And then for the neckline, we're going to do the exact same. However, since it is a square shape, it's a little bit different. As we go around the corners, you kind of have to manipulate and fold the bias tape over itself to go around all of the corners. So I'm just going to pin it all around, pivoting around the corners. I'll do this for the entire neckline. Now we're going to sew it. Whenever I sew bias tape, I always like to take that first raw edge and fold it in by about half an inch and then start sewing. You'll see why in a minute, but this just conceals that raw edge. Now I'm just going to sew in that middle of the bias tape right where that little crease is. On the neckline, you're just going to have to pivot around that corner. So once you get to that point, you'll drop the needle down, lift the presser foot, pivot your fabric, drop the presser foot and keep sewing. You'll pivot like this all around the neckline. And then when you get to the end, you should have extra slack there. I'm going to give myself about one or two inches of room and I'll cut that extra slack off. And then I'm just going to keep sewing all the way across. I'll end with a backstitch and this is how it should look. So the next step for bias tape is you just fold it down and then fold it to the inside of the garment. So this gives you a nice neat finish on the inside as well as the outside, but it gets a little bulky with all of that fabric there. So I always like to cut my seam allowance in half. Now you just have to be careful not to accidentally cut the shirt while you're doing this. So it's a little bit precise, but this makes such a big difference, especially on that neckline. You really want to cut the seam allowance on that corner. We really want to get rid of that bulk right there. So I'm just cutting that seam allowance in half. Now that that seam allowance is cut, it's so much easier to now fold that bias tape over and fold it in. And now it's not as bulky and it's going to look really nice when we sew it all across. So I'm just going to take it to my sewing machine, folding the bias tape in towards the wrong side of the shirt. I'm just going to start sewing it all around and do that for the bias tape on my entire top. Moving on to the pants. We're going to first mark two inches down on the side seams. This is where we're going to place the pockets. So I'm placing the pocket down right sides together, two inches down from the top, and I'll pin it down. I'm going to do this for all four of the pockets. I'm just pinning them two inches down from the top on all of my pants pieces. Once that's done, we can go ahead and sew those pinned edges. So we're just sewing where the pocket is connected. Now this is a great time to finish your raw edges on that side seam. So if you want to use a zigzag stitch, pinking shears, whatever. Next, where we sewed that pocket on, we're going to fold the pocket out and press that nice and flat. We'll do that to all of the pants pieces. Okay, once that's done, we're going to connect our pants pieces. So I'm putting the right front leg down and then I'm going to put the right back leg down, right sides together. This is when I realized I forgot to finish my raw edges. I always forget on the pants. So finish your raw edges, folks. I'm pinning down the side seam around the pocket and down the rest of the side seam. I'm also pinning the inseams together. And now we're just going to sew along the inseam and then down that side seam around the pocket and down the rest of the side seam using a simple straight stitch. And when you're sewing, again, you're going to have to pivot when you get to that pocket, making sure I'm sewing at half an inch seam allowance the entire time. So the side seam is done and now I'm sewing the inseams. And this would be a good time to finish that inseam with a zigzag stitch, pinking shears, whatever. And you know the drill, we're going to press our seams nice and flat. Now we're connecting our left and our right pant legs. So I'm putting one pant leg inside out and then I'm going to flip the other pant leg right side out. Now I'm putting one pant leg inside of the other pant leg. Basically you want the pant legs to be right sides together. And we're going to pin all around that crotch seam. So I'm making sure that the inseams are matched up perfectly. I'll put a pin there first and then I'm just going to continue pinning around this U-shaped crotch seam. Okay, now I'm going to sew around that pinned edge. Now, since this is a little curved seam, we need to clip this curve. So I'm just clipping little tiny triangles in the bottom half of the curve. And clipping this curve is going to help this seam just move a little bit. Since you're going to wear this on your body, you want to be able to move. Next, you'll finish that crotch seam with a zigzag stitch, pinking shears, or a serger. And now when we flip our pants right side out, look at that. We have pants. Now we just need to gather this waist using some elastic. So I'm using one inch wide elastic. I'm going to first measure it to my waist. I just want to make sure it's stretchy enough and also able to get it down over my hips. Once you have that mark, go ahead and cut your elastic. This is going to help so much. I always like to fold my elastic in half and mark the halfway point. And then I fold it into quarters. And I mark the quarter points. So your elastic should have three marks on it. Now let's pin it to our pants. I'm going to match that middle point up with the center front seam. I'll put a pin there. I'll match the quarter point up with the side seam. The other quarter point up with the other side seam. And then bring them around to the back and pin them down. Now the elastic is pinned equidistant around the pants. We can go ahead and sew it with a zigzag stitch. I'm going to do a wide zigzag stitch, like a six. I'll start on one of the ends of the elastic. I'll start with a bunch of back stitches to make it nice and secure. And this is important. When you're sewing elastic, you always want to pull on the elastic gently as you sew. This is going to create that nice gathered effect. I'll end with a bunch of back stitches so it's nice and secure. And now our pants have a nice gather. To finish this edge, I'm going to fold it down once. I'll sew it with another zigzag all around. Again, gently pulling on the elastic as I sew. And then to further finish that raw edge, I'll fold the waistband in again. And this time, since you're going to see this stitch from the outside of the pants, I like to do a straight stitch. And I'm sewing it really close to that inner folded edge. Again, gently pulling on the elastic as you sew. Now let's hem the bottom of our pants. This is easy. We're just folding it in twice by about half an inch, pressing it, and sewing it. And we are done. Just like that, we have the coolest little two-piece set. My only qualms with this outfit is, first of all, I definitely made this too cropped, but I can live with that. The other thing is this pattern going down my crotch is kind of weird. I do wish the pants were more like this, but I don't know. I can't decide. Comment below if you think I should somehow fix that or if it's fine how it is. But regardless, I really love how this turned out. Give this video a little like if you learned something and make sure you're subscribed. Follow me on Instagram and TikTok for more sewing fun and have a great day. Thanks for watching.