Knock it Off - Designs By Sessa

It is such a privilege to have Vanessa from Designs By Sessa here today...not only is she an awesomely talented seamstress, but she is also super sweet.  She's the kind of person I wish lived down the street, because I know we'd be great friends!  And she did such an amazing job on her knock-off...can you even tell hers from the original?!  Welcome, Vanessa, thank you so much for inspiring us!
It's such a pleasure to be here with you guys today! Thank you, Heidi for having me! I love a good knock-off and I have been LOVING this series like crazy! I'm often inspired by what I see in clothing stores. I have trouble even shopping anymore, because I would rather figure out how to make it, than buy it. Oh, you know you're the same! Today I have a Knock-off for the Gap Embroidered Rugby Pullover, that was originally $32.

There is no way, I am going to buy a $32 polo for my growing son. I love him to pieces, but no. Not when I can make it.

Mine is not EXACTLY the same, but I had this knit stripe shirt that matched so perfectly, that I just had to knock-off this Gap item when I saw it. I'm one of those blessed sewist that has a machine that is both an embroidery machine and a sewing machine in one. While I did use some of the machine embroidery for this shirt (the nine and the patch area), I also added some hand embroidery to make it match a little bit more, too. There's an art to learning both machine and hand embroidery, and I enjoy both. So, here's how to make the Knock-off Embroiderd Gap Rugby Polo!

Since I was upcycling an existing polo, I first detached the collar by seam ripping the original collar out. My plan was to sandwich the new hood I would make in the old collar's place.

I cut out my shirt using a pattern block, and I kept my shoulder seamstogether, so that I would not have to resew my collar piece later. I just cut off the bottom and sides, leaving the shoulder seams. Literally, I used the front block piece to cut out the front. And the back block piece to cut out the back.

Now that my shirt was cut out, I worked on the embroidery aspects. First, I designed the 9 in my software and machine stitched that out. After I was done, I free stitched the extra blue stitching using a triple-stretch stitch with a wider width over the 9 to make it look a bit more like the Gap version.

Then, I used what embroidery patterns I had on my machine to make the other shield patch. The biggest disappointment was how small the flags turned out. Learning to machine embroider can be such a learning curve. I have no idea why I couldn't get them any larger than that, but oh, well, it's still cute. After I stitched that out, I hand stitched the crown and the red chevron area. Next, I used a Gap hoodie we already own to trace out my hood. The GAP hoodie I was knocking off, just had two hood pieces, not three, so it was very easy to lay a hood flat and make a new pattern piece.

I used a gray knit t-shirt, using the hem of the shirt for the hood hem, and sewed and "serged" the two pieces together. And by "serged" I mean, I used the stitch over where I had done a straight stitch to make it look serged. Tricky, tricky, eh!? I sandwiched the hood into where the old collar used to be and stitched in the ditch to add my new hood. All that was left was adding my sleeves.

I used a twin stretch needle to hem my shirt, as well. I just think it turned out so cute!

I guess, he did, too!

Now, isn't that just fun! I love knock-offs! Mine was Free since I already had all the supplies in my stash! Yay, for that!