My 1 hour skirt

If you remember a couple weeks ago I picked up some amazing vintage fabric over at Wholly Craft. I finally had the time to turn it into a skirt. Super easy and took only one hour. (please excuse the mess, my guest room has also turned into my sewing room and craft, and well general junk magazine stash room)

The fabric had a high stretch content on the weft and it was a polyester 120" wide (60" when folded).  I measured out my length for the skirt and then cut it across.

After unfolding it this was the width and my waistband. Luckily with the stretch on this fabric and thickness I was able to use the waistband without elastic.  I just needed to account for the stretch so I made it 2" smaller then my waist measurement. It was perfect.

To bring the fabric into a more manageable length I used my ruffler foot to assist me in the gathering.

I had it set to ruffle every 6 stitches.

After everything was ruffles it was about half the width but still not enough to comfortably set it into the waistband. At this point the seams were also sewn up so that they could be included into the ruffled gathers without it looking awkward.

With a contrasting thread I put in a basting stitch and then pulled the last of the gathering to make it fit into the waistband.

With everything pinned into place it was time to sew the skirt and waistband to each other.

With this type of polyester fabric there were no problems with everything unraveling so I didn't feel the need to serge the fabric and the waistband I had picked was a simple fold over straight style in two pieces. I didn't need side seams but I wanted them to be in there for extra support against the fabric stretching too much.

Carefully sewing the skirt and waistband together I find it easier if the flat waistband is on the bottom and the gathered skirt is on top so you can watch that nothing gets twisted or overly gathered in places.

Sewing with a stretch style waistband you also have to remember to use a stretch stitch and not a straight stitch or else the stitches will break when you stretch it to put it on.

You must be very careful to not sew over pins or sew them in and forget to take them out. It is an easy mistake to make when dealing with so much fabric.

The finished skirt before the hem. I decided to do an easy 1/2" top stitch hem and not worry about the stretch since there was so much fabric for the skirt I had no worries about torn stitches in the hem.

 

Ta Da! All done and ready to wear out.  

What have you been sewing lately? Is there a super fast and easy project that you are proud of?  Just because it's fast doesn't mean it isn't good or well crafted as long as you get the results that you wanted.

Cheers!

Fringed Skirt - DIY

I saw this in Lucky and was inspired to make my own over the weekend. Although the materials are supposed to leather and glass beads I used what I had, T-shirts sitting for disposal from the house.

Thankfully my hubby and I are of completely different sizes. His old t-shirts were just the right amount of fabric to make my fringe skirt.

I cut each one in half so that I would have room on the front and back. Also if you have ever worked with t-shirts before the best roll is when you cut them across horizontally in strips.  I divided it vertically first so that I can cut my pieces horizontally for the fringe.

I measured out and cut with a rotary cutter 1" wide stripes leaving 1" at the top for me to be able to sew it to the skirt base. This also keeps the fringe from stretching too far up and tearing itself apart.

After all the pieces are cut I stretch each individual strip to give it both length and let it roll itself into thinner strips.

You can see the difference here between stretched and unstretched fringe.

With all the fringe stretched I am ready to sew it onto my skirt base.
The skirt base I used was a simple pencil skirt with a high stretch on the horizontal.

I sewed the first top fringe color on first so that I could judge the placement of the others as I worked down. I attached it with a top stitch since that would easiest to work with.

Remember when you are sewing with stretch you want to use a stretch friendly stitch such as a zigzag stitch. This will allow the fabric to freely stretch with the fabric without breaking the stitch.

I lay out the second tier of fringe under the seam line about an inch and make it with chalk so I can see it while sewing.

Sewing the fringe onto a pre-made skirt can be tricky and you want to be careful when pinning things on stretch fabric because they will want to move.  I didn't do it here but I suggest using a walking foot when working with stretch. Otherwise the bottom feeder feet will put more tension on the bottom and stretch the fabric more then the top.

I followed the same steps with the third and last tier.

When you get this far it can get a little complicated so make sure to keep all the other fringe tiers out of the way of your sewing. A good tip is to pin them up or even pin another piece of fabric over them to keep them out of the way.

My finished skirt! I would show you a full photos but when I sew, let's just say it's not the most fashionable things I wear. I'll do an Outfit of the Day soon showing off my new skirt.

When I am bored

Or also the Worst OTD EVAH!

I was trying to get some fabrics out of the way and avoid working on my wedding dress yet again so I took all this extra poly organza stuff that I used to drape my "muslin" for my dress and turned it into a petticoat skirt.  I was cold so I continued to pile stuff on from the dryer since it was just done and still warm.  When I came up for air and to use the bathroom I looked like this.

Yes very scary..... Fiancee stopped me and laughed and I knew I had to take a picture.

In all seriousness here is a photo of the petticoat not on me making me look the fool!

Amazing what clever things you can do with some free time, lot's of organza like poly fabric, ruffle foot and a simple a-line draw sting skirt pattern. I think this took me about an hour and half to make.  the nice thing with this fabric is I didn't need to worry about finishing edges.

Currently I am back on track with my wedding dress and blogging.  I took a small Hiatus with traveling this past weekend for a family funeral.  We went last minute up to Toronto Friday and came back Sunday.  It gave me a good reminder to check up on some friends I've missed because I've been so busy.  Today I wrote the last of my e.mails and snail mails.  I've also gotten quite a bit of new sewing projects done.  I'll have updates next week with some new blog content.  For now just laugh and giggle and my photos.

Tomorrow's TiLT will be a Chicago Special from my trip 2 weeks ago.  Cheers!