No-Sew Halter Top

I've wanted to make my own halter-top tshirt ever since I saw Leila from Don't Speak Whinese rock her awesome handmade outfit at last month's Clever Girls' Party. But alas, it involves a teensy bit of machine sewing, and even though I have a perfectly good Singer sewing machine in the garage, the thought of winding bobbins and threading needles in order to make something I'm going to wear in public is so unappealing, it makes me want to do laundry.

Recently, however, I stumbled across a blog with instructions on how to make a halter top from a plain t-shirt without any sewing. Now that's my kind of craft! I won't bother to repeat the instructions, because Ali from Found in the "Ali" has already laid it all out, step-by-step, with photos. All you need are a good pair of scissors and a unisex shirt. It literally takes just five minutes.

Unfortunately, I've just made a big clothes donation to Goodwill, so I didn't have any tshirts I could experiment on for my first try -- but The Pea does. In fact, I had just received a light blue promo tshirt from a toy brand that seemed destined to go into The Pea's pajama drawer, so I decided to make her my guinea pig model.

As I said, I won't go into the details, and I didn't take step-by-step photos, but I did want to highlight a few details of the shirt:

The halter top is just a strip of t-shirt fabric tied to the neckline. I decided to twist the fabric before knotting it to give it an interesting look.


To get the fitted style, Ali instructs you to cut strips down the back of the shirt and tie them together. I found that the ties look much nicer and more even if you tie each one exactly the same way: left strip over right, then right over left. Then cut the hanging ends to an even length.

Here's the final product. The neckline is much higher than Ali's creation, which is entirely appropriate for a 10-year-old girl. The Pea loves it, and so do I. Thanks Ali, for your wonderful craft -- I'm ready to make my own!

For complete instructions on how to make a no-sew halter top, head on over to Found in the Ali!