Tutorial – Tank Top Bra Catcher

Okay, so I couldn’t think of a better name for this tutorial so I just went with “descriptive!”  I wish I had thought of this at the beginning of the summer.

A few months ago I scored with $2 tank tops at Old Navy.  LOVE them!  My problem is that I have to wear a bra (can you be a negative cup size after nursing a child?), a camisole and then the tank top.  For some reason it just looks weird on me if I don’t.  That means that I end up with all of these straps hanging out of my shirt.

Okay, I know that it’s “ccol” for the kiddos to wear colored bras and different colored shirts and have their bra straps hanging out.  Sorry, I’m just not down with that.  I end up trying to adjust these the entire day.  So I came up with something that I have in one of my random dresses and always thought it was GENIUS.  It is a little “bra catcher” that holds your bra and camisole in place, hidden in your top!

Materials:

-Ribbon – I used ribbon but you can use whatever you have on hand; elastic, even bias tape, ric rac or fabric scraps

-Snaps – found these at Wal-Mart for $1.50

-If using ribbon, you’ll need a Fray Stop of some sort

-Needle and thread – parts are done on the sewing machine, but you can do all of it by hand if you prefer

Directions:

1.  Take a tank top that you are going to use and hold the ribbon up to it.  You need to see how much ribbon you need for this.  I sewed mine close to the seam at the top of my shoulders.  You want your ribbon to reach from just inside the outside seam to just inside the inside seam.  You’ll need two of these cut for each tank top (one for each shoulder).

2.  Once your ribbon length is cut, use a Fray Stop on one end.  I did 5 tank tops so I had 10 sets of ribbons.

3.  When dry, sew one of the snaps to the end with the fray stop.  I did this by hand and it didn’t take that long.  Then I snapped the matching part on it to keep them all together.

4.  Next you will sew your ribbon into place on the top (on the right side of the picture).  Match up your ribbon on the shoulder of your top and sew the side without the snap with either a small straight stitch or a zigzag stitch.  Cut the excess ribbon.

5.  Next you will hand sew the other snap into place on your top.  As you can see from the picture above, the snap on the left side would be sewed in place near the side seam.

Here’s what it looks like completed (I am folding the ribbon down so you can see – obviously the snaps are sewn so they match up!):
Here’s what it looks like when all done.  I wanted to show you where exactly they are sewn in relation to the entire garment.

As a reminder, here is the before:

 

  And after snapping my bra and camisole straps into the ribbon holders:

Yippee!  So pretty.  Again, sorry to put this out there so late in the season, but here in Texas I have at least another month or so to wear these and it is a HUGE help.  Maybe you can save this and do it next year? :)