How to clone a ready-to-wear sports top

A few years ago I bought a sports top in an M&S sale. I love the shape and fit of it, but I can’t really pull off a crop top. So back then I extended it with a bit of black jersey and it works perfectly, because the extended bit is tucked under my leggings or skirt. When a local deadstock fabric shop, Textile Mountain, had a drop of sportswear fabrics from a Czech brand, Kinoko, a few months ago, I couldn’t resist getting some and thought I’d try to clone my top into a new and improved one.

I’ve never tried making patterns from existing clothes. As I usually prefer clothes from woven fabrics which have darts and other shaping and I think that copying that is quite tricky. But this top has no 3D shaping, so it seemed like a good idea to finally give cloning clothes a try. Here is how I went about it.

Assessing the original

I started out by carefully inspecting how the original top was made. Besides the fashion fabric, which is some sort of sports jersey, it has a built-in bra made from a double layer of cotton jersey, which has removable pad inserts and is finished with a soft elastic band. The straps and the top edges have narrow elastic sewn into them to stop them from stretching out. So besides the sports jersey, I needed to source cotton jersey, two types of elastic and the pad inserts. The pad inserts sold in habedashery shops were awful, but in the end I found that Kinoko sell their own to go with their sportsbras, so that’s what I got and they are much nicer.

Tracing off the pattern

The next step was creating the pattern from the original top. I folded the top in half along the centre front, pinned the edges together and pinned the side seams to make sure they were perfectly aligned. Then I placed the top on a piece of paper and traced off the shape of the front piece, sticking pins through the side seam and connecting the little holes afterwards. Because of the straps, the top wasn’t laying completely flat, so tracing off the neckline edge was a bit trickier and I needed to do it bit by bit, while not moving the centre front. I repeated the same process with the back piece where I also marked the placement of the straps.

I then added 1cm seam allowance and 1.5cm hem allowance to the pattern. I also measured on the original top where the the built-in bra should finish and marked it on the front and back pattern pieces, and measured the required length of the straps and the elastic band of the bra.

Cutting out

Finally it was time to cut everything out. From the sports fabric I cut one front piece, one back piece (both on fold) and the straps (4cm wide strips of the measured length for a 1cm wide finished strip). From the cotton jersey I cut out two fronts and two backs (using the same pattern pieces, but finishing at the line I marked for the bra).

Putting the top together

The sewing part was quite straightforward. I used the Gutterman Maraflex elastic thread and used a stretch stitch (lightning) or a zig-zag stitch on my normal machine.

1. I started with the top itself, sewing together the side seams and the straps. For the straps, I folded the strips of fabric in half and sewed them with a 1cm seam allowance, trimmed the seam allowance and ironed the straps so that the seam would be in the middle of the side which will lay against the body. I then threaded through a 8mm wide elastic.

2. I then moved on to the built-in bra. One layer needs to have an opening in the side seams which the pad inserts can be pulled through. So I sewed the side seams of one pair (front and back) together completely and of the other pair only partially.

3. Then I sewed the ends of the elastic for the bra band together with an overlock stitch, folded it to one side and topstitched it to lay flat. I then put both bras right sides together and inserted the elastic band between the layers at the bottom edge, eased bra layers onto the elastic and sewed the seam with a lightning stitch. I pulled the bras right sides out and topstitched along the bottom edge with a zig-zag stitch. I also topstitched right next to the side seams of the bra on the back piece so that the opening in the seam would lead only to the front.

4. To stop the pad inserts from moving around much, I topstitched vertically along the centre front of the bra and also horizontally (about 5cm down from the neckline) with a zig-zag stitch.

5. The original top has elastic sewn into the top edges to stop them from stretching. I used the same elastic as for the straps and sewed it with a zig-zag onto the seam allowances of the fashion fabric right next to the seam.

6. Then I tacked the straps in place according to the markings, laid the top and the bra right sides together, and stitched it together. To stop the edges of the bra layer peeking out, I understitched with a zig-zag stitch.

7. Following the original top, I topstitched along the side seams and hemmed the top with a zig-zag stitch (but if you have a coverlock, this is where it would come in handy!).

The result

I am quite happy with how the top turned out. Only my sewing machine has been a little temperamental sewing jersey and whatever I do with the tension or whichever needle I try, the stitches are either not stretchy enough or wavy… But the pattern itself works quite well, I think, and I will definitely make another. I love that it can be worn not just for sport, but in the summer I’ve worn it to the office too.