Sew a Tank Top

Hey y’all, today’s project is a video update of a popular older tutorial on how to sew a tank top. This is a knit tank top with woven bias tape trim, and I love the little pop of color and contrast the bias tape adds. And this is exactly the type of top I like to sleep in year round, though there’s no reason this top has to be for bedtime only.

Now you might think that sewing woven bias tape to a stretchy knit tank won’t work, but it totally does. You just need a few tricks that I’ll show you in the video below.

Want to make your own? You’ll need

• 2/3 yd of knit. Rib knit with some spandex mixed into the cotton is the best. You want the knit to have at least 50% stretch and good recovery for this pattern. That means that you should be able to stretch a 10″ long piece to 15″ and have it snap back to 10″ long.
• 1/2″ wide double fold bias tape. I made my own and you can too. See the bias tape tutorial here.
• The pattern…

The pattern is sized for about a 34″ bust.However, since it’s stretch knit, it would probably fit down to a 32″ bust.  If you need to make the pattern bigger or smaller, check out this post. Or, you could do this technique on the Texana Tank pattern (available in sizes up to 3X) in my shop. Note though that this tank has negative ease, where the Texana has no ease/slight positive ease (in some parts of the pattern) so they’re not exactly the same. More about pattern ease here.

To get this pattern, click your preferred option from the buttons below as a newsletter subscriber or gallery access pass purchaser. Note that the free version of the pattern does not have printable instructions.

Please note that all my free patterns are licensed for personal use only (no selling items made from this unless you purchase it) and by downloading you are agreeing to this license.

To sew, watch the video below. Or, if it doesn’t load for some reason you can watch it on YouTube here. If you prefer a written tutorial, I’ve got one here.