Accent Details: Emilia Sports Bra

If you're working on the Emilia sports bra pattern, one of the fun aspects of this pattern is all of the details you can provide with that one inch strip of contrasting fabric that you've cut from either the bright floral fabric, if you're using the same fabric recommended with this pattern, or maybe a different fabric. So I'm gonna show you some tips for when you are cutting out this one inch strip and when you are putting it into the front strap pieces, things that can make it a little bit easier. So I've mentioned this before, but using a rotary cutter and ruler can really help when cutting out pieces, and especially when you are cutting out a one inch strip, which is very narrow, from a fabric that is very stretchy, a little bit smooth. It's hard to, for one, even lay that down on a flat surface and cut using your scissors. Even if you've tried to draw a straight line and are following a straight line, it can be really, really tricky. So if there's ever a project to be using your rotary cutter, ruler, and mat on, it is for cutting out these one inch strips for this accent piece for the sports bra. The next thing I wanna talk about is putting it into the front strap. So that's one of the first pieces that you're gonna be working with, is putting together the front strap. And when you first look at the pattern pieces for this sports bra, I had to look at it twice because it didn't go together the way I first initially had thought, because you look at the pattern piece and it might look like it's backwards, but it's actually, you need to piece together the front straps. So that took me a second to look at. So make sure that you are looking all the way through all of your pattern pieces, knowing where everything goes, before you start assembling. But you have a upper strap and a middle strap for the front that you need to put together. When you are cutting out your pieces, after you've cut everything out, I highly recommend you leave, even if they're not still pinned together, leave your little pattern piece with the actual piece of fabric. That way you know how things go together, because say you set these aside and now you've got all of these pieces that maybe got jumbled up, now it's maybe hard to see what sides go together, what areas go together. But if you leave your pattern pieces on top of your fabric, that makes that much easier. Also with the pieces, because these pieces can be tricky to see how they need to go together if you haven't seen it, once you see it it's gonna be very easy, but when you're first looking at it there are some lines and markings on your pattern pieces that you want to transfer onto your actual fabric, again, with some pins or tailor's tack or something like that, and that is these little dash lines here. So these two little dashes, when you line up your middle strap and your upper straps, should line up perfectly. So that's one thing that helps you make sure that you are getting the pattern pieces aligned, and again, why you wanna keep these together so you're not trying to put something together weird. So make sure you've kept your pattern pieces with your fabric and you know what needs to line up where. Then once you have things positioned how they need to go, then you can set them aside. So for this, we obviously wanna stitch it just right sides together, and we wanna put in our accent strip. So when I did this, I just cut a bunch of one inch strips so I knew I had plenty to work with, and I just laid this down over my piece and I went ahead and just used my scissors and cut it about an inch, inch and a half, inch longer than I know it needed to be just so I had plenty to work with. Now, you're gonna take this and you want to fold in half, wrong sides together. And you're gonna go ahead and align that with the edge of, I'm gonna do that with the middle strap piece. It doesn't really matter which one you pin it to first. You just want to pin it to one of them so you have that fold in place, 'cause this is not a fabric where you can take it to your iron and press it and that fold will stay. So you need to pin that fold in place. So I folded it wrong sides together and now I'm aligning those raw edges right like so. Once I have some pins in, it is attached and now we are ready to put the upper strap onto the middle with our accent piece sandwiched in between. So I always treat things like a puzzle. I have this puzzle laid out in front of me. Whatever piece I pick up, whatever I do to it, when I wanna bring it down to add my next piece, I need to lay it back exactly where it was so I make sure I'm putting the right piece in the right spot. But now I know this one needs to come on to here, right sides together, so I can go ahead and now align all of the raw edges. And you can either take out the pins that you just put in and sort of reposition it again through all layers, or just grab a couple more and put them in. Again, anytime you're working with a stretch fabric, a knit fabric, a slinkier fabric like this, it's always a good idea to use even more pins than you think is necessary. That way, nothing moves or shifts while you're working with it. Once you have everything pinned, now it's time to stitch. Now, generally speaking with your stretch fabrics or with these patterns where you are putting together a garment where you need it to stretch, you're gonna want to be using that stretch stitch, a zigzag stitch, something along those lines. However, there are areas where you don't necessarily need this to stretch. This is the front strap piece. It's gonna go on the side right here. This seam is going perpendicular to an area that would really need to stretch, so this is not a seam where I'm worried about whether or not it's going to stretch. So it's much easier to insert these little folded half-inch details if you just go ahead and use a straight stitch. So I'm still have my all-purpose thread, so I have some polyester so my thread has some stretch. Still using my ballpoint, jersey, or stretch needle, so I have all of those things that I need for working with stretch fabric. But for this one area where I'm just adding in these accent details, I'm just going to use my straight stitch. So I want to take my pins out as I can get to them. Definitely don't stitch over them, but you want to make sure you're holding that fold in place. And we're just stitching this, and I'm stitching this on a one quarter-inch seam allowance because our strip is folded in half at one half inch, and if I use that half inch seam allowance, it's going to disappear. So this is an area where I need to use a quarter-inch seam allowance. But you can see just by doing that, I have this perfect, nice, folded detail right in there. And now I obviously I have areas that are much too long on both sides. And again, if you reference the full step-by-step photo tutorial instructions on how to put this together, again, that's with the pattern on their blog, it's gonna tell you which way to push the seam allowances, which they recommend pushing the seam allowances up. So go ahead and fold your seam allowance up. And then once you have it folded you can see all of the excess, and you can just come in here with your scissors and trim off the extra that is that one inch accent strip. Go ahead and do the same thing on the other side, keeping the seam allowance folded in the same direction. Go ahead and trim off the extra. And now you have your fun, little folded accent details put on your strap pieces. You're gonna do that on the other side and add your accents in the other places in this fun pattern as well. But for this, my main tips are use that rotary cutter and ruler if you can to more easily cut out those one inch strips, and on areas like this that don't have to stretch, don't try and worry about doing that stretch stitch. It's just gonna be very hard to get a nice, straight, even line and get a nice, straight, even accent detail. It's easier to do that with that straight stitch. So those are my tips for putting together the Emilia sports bra.