The Magnificent Thread: cold shoulder

Giving the Cold Shoulder: How to

Make your own cold shoulder inserts

My last post was all about a 'cold shoulder' hack of the By Hand London Flora dress, and as I mentioned there, I thought it might be useful to write up a more detailed post of how I did it. The best thing about the cold shoulder inserts is that they're not a Flora-exclusive hack - they can be paired with pretty much any sleeveless bodice, or could even be used to update an old top or dress to make it bang on trend.

How to give the cold shoulder!

The look is still going strong in the shops/on Instagram/pretty much everywhere, but here's a bit more inspiration should you need it:

Images from Pinterest, including garments from Finery, Topshop and Whistles

Make your own

Measure around your arm - preferably wearing your bodice or a muslin of your bodice if you have one. You want to measure edge of your dress on the front, to the edge of the arm hole on the back.

Measurements

My cold shoulder inserts are close fitting, so I cut the basic arm band out at 10.5" long x 4" deep (this includes a seam allowance).
You need to cut out a second, longer piece that will be gathered into the arm band. Mine is 16" long x 4" deep (including seam allowance) but this length can be adjusted depending on how much gathering you want.

Gathering

Gather the longer piece using your preferred gathering technique - I like to sew 3 rows of long stitches within a 1.5cm seam allowance (no back stitching at the beginning or end) and pull the end threads to gather.
*Note* For my own project, I folded the longer piece in half depth-ways before gathering. This creates slightly more structured gathers/ruffles and avoids any hemming, but can be a bit bulky depending on your fabric. For the purpose of this tutorial, I haven't folded the gathered piece and it has a bit more 'flow' and drape. If you choose not to fold them, you will need to decide how deep you want your inserts to fall, and hem the bottom of them before adding them to your garment.
Gather the piece until it is the same length as the arm band insert.
Even up the gathers, and pin the gathered section to your arm band, right sides together.

Gather and pin

Machine stitch in place, trim or grade your seam allowances to reduce bulk, open the seam out and press lightly.

Machine stitch in place

On the other side of the arm band, fold and press 1.5cm towards the wrong side.

Folding a seam allowance under

Fold the arm band in half, so that the folded edge you've just created meets the seam where your gathered piece has been stitched in place.
With all seam allowances folded up towards the arm band, press and pin (all the raw edges will now be concealed).

Finishing your inserts

Hand stitch in place. I love to slip stitch, but Sew Essential have created a bunch of really helpful video tutorials on all the different ways of hand finishing - find your favourite here.
Hem the bottom of your insert if required.

Now make another!
Once you have both your inserts, you just have to join them to your dress or top of choice.

Working out your positioning with a muslin

If your garment is lined like the Flora bodice, then you can sandwich the insert between the bodice outer and lining (it's helpful to baste them in place and check the positioning first!). With the Flora, you do this in the same manner as inserting the straps (see below). *Note* I lowered the Flora neckline by 1" so the inserts could be lined up with it, so you might want to consider whether your bodice needs any adjusting!

Joining inserts as you would join straps

If your garment is unlined, or you're using your inserts to update an already-finished garment, I'd recommend finishing the ends of your inserts. This could be with an overlocker or zig zag stitch, or if your fabric isn't too bulky, you may be able to hem the ends. Finish the arm hole of your garment if you haven't already done so. Baste the inserts in place and check the positioning. Then stitch them in place by either neatly machining, or hand stitching if you don't want too much visible stitching on the outside of your garment.

And hopefully you'll end up with a beautiful finished cold shoulder dress or top!

If you try it out I'd love to see the results! You can find me/get in touch using the links below, or email me at magnificent.thread[at]gmail.com.

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Monday, September 26, 2016
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By Hand London Flora: Cold shoulder hack

By Hand London

Despite mainly sewing my clothes, I still visit the high street regularly and keep up with what's in store, and I can't help but notice that cold shoulder tops and dresses are everywhere. A lot of these garments are quite loose fitting, which is not a style I can get away with too easily, but I sort of wanted in on the trend too. So I decided to make my own version, using the tried and tested By Hand London Flora bodice.

By Hand London Flora bodice hack

I'd already tackled the fit adjustments for the the Flora bodice for a culotte/jumpsuit hack, so that made it an obvious choice for experimenting with shoulder inserts. I hung onto my muslin - it's a pretty rare occasion that I'd even make one, so this was lucky - and made use of some scraps to do a bit of testing. I ended up with what's essentially a gathered arm band insert that I was pretty happy with - I'm thinking of putting this together in a more detailed fashion in the near future as a bit of a how-to if anyone's interested!

Sketches and plans

Scraps and muslin practice

The fit of my Flora remained almost the same, but I took an extra inch off the front neckline to open it up a little. I also shaved 0.5cm off the centre back, to get a slightly closer fit. I used a mid-weight crepe from the grab bins at Abakhan, which could have only cost me about £5, if not less! The fabric may look plain, but it has such an expensive feel and drape to it - the sort that you might find in Whistles or Cos.

Side view

The only thing I would do differently if I made something similar would to be line up the neckline with the shoulder inserts a little better, and lower the back neckline 1" to match the front. I'm just slightly out with these, which makes the neckline look a little disjointed rather than creating a clean line across, but oh well, practice makes perfect!

From the back!

I made the bodice without too much consideration of what the skirt would look like. I think I'd sort of envisaged a straight, just-below-the-knee-length darted style, but to be perfectly honest, I got lazy, and couldn't be bothered to draft, adjust, or find a pattern to match. My gathered skirt wasn't on a complete whim though - I tried the bodice on with an old self drafted gathered skirt to get an idea of the shape, and it just sort of worked. I used all the fabric I had left so I could make it as long as possible, and I think the gathers hang really nicely in the fabric. There's no visible stitching on the outside of the dress so I decided to go all out and finish the hem by hand too.

A long gathered skirt to off set a slim bodice

I'm really pleased with the results, and massively proud that I managed to translate what I saw in the shops, into something that's much more wearable for me. It's actually turned out quite a lot posher than I imagined, and I'm wearing it at a wedding in these pictures - who says you can't wear black to a wedding eh? I think I'd like to try it again in a print fabric, or maybe as just a top version eventually, but I do have quite a lot on my list at the moment - imminent Autumn sewing is calling! - so we'll see!

A Polaroid of me and Chris at the wedding :)

As a side note, and speaking of the Flora bodice, my culotte/Flora hybrid made it in print! Thanks Megan of Pigeon Wishes for recommending my project as her favourite pattern hack. Check out Megan's own (amazing) pattern hack and article in the latest Sew Style mag.