DIY Mixed Plaid Bustier from Napkins | McCall’s M7937

I’m going to call this my picnic top! The colors and patterns are perfect for a picnic day. But the real reason is because I made this beautiful McCall’s M7937 bustier out of napkins! 

That’s right. These beautiful prints are from 3 cotton napkins: a warm tonal plaid, a green and white gingham, and an orange stripe with embroidered dots. The orange napkin has lived in my stash since the height of my Runaway Apricot food blogging days. The other two well-coordinated napkins were bought together at a thrift store last summer. I was happy to find mixed prints with a subtle relationship in the plaid print and green color. I hadn’t yet decided to make this top with the napkins, but buying coordinated prints opened up my possibilities. This lesson came with the wonderful ankara I used to make my reversible crop top!

What I love most about this bustier is the mixing of high and low style. The humble upcycled napkins cost me less than $2, but the style borrows from runway styles of Sylvia Tcherassi and Rosie Assoulin. What makes this top look most expensive is the fit. There’s boning to structure the sides and keep the top from flopping over. Of course, that only matters because of the tight fit. I removed a few inches from the back of my pattern and replaced the thick straps with ties to hug my body close.

I will be wearing this cute bustier for the rest of the summer with all of my high-waisted bottoms! And now that I’ve got the fit right, I want to make several more of this crop top with scraps of my favorite fabrics. Check your scraps and stashes – you might have a cute bustier just waiting to be sewn!

Pattern

• McCall’s M7937, View B
• Sewing Difficulty – 2/5
  • Simple to sew until the zipper insertion because the pattern illustration is misleading. You should serge the raw edges then baste right sides together before placing the zipper face down.
• Fit Difficulty – 2/5
  • I didn’t need to add length or do a full bust adjustment for this pattern. I was able to make the alterations by pinning out the excess fabric.
• This is my second make of this pattern and I want to make it again!

Fabric

• This is made with 3 upcycled cotton napkins plus a bit of lavender and white gingham for the ties
• Lined with a lavender cotton broadcloth

Fit & Modifications

• I made this top before but I decided to start from scratch with the fit adjustments since it was too loose.
• I cut a straight size 16 for the top
• To fit to my body, on each back piece I took out 1″ at the top and angled down to 1.5″ at the bottom.
• Instead of the thick straps, I drafted thin straps that tie at the shoulder. 
  • The 4 straps are each 16″ in length and 1/4″ in width.
  • The thick cotton broke my loop turner so I had to fold in the raw edges and sew it down

Tips for mixed prints with McCall’s M7937

• Plan out your color blocking before you cut into the fabric. I like to upload the line drawing of my sewing pattern into a drawing program on my tablet and color in the lines to find the best look.
• You can save yourself any pattern matching and save fabric by making it so no two of the same fabric are touching. This is also the most whimsical pattern mixing option.
• Here are the three variations I considered when making this top:

Tutorials that were helpful

• I needed to shorten the separating zipper for this project and used this tutorial from Seamwork.
• Watch my first YouTube video to learn more about different zipper styles and my massive zipper collection.