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Completed: A Fabulously Festive Skirt

Ok, y’all, time to wrap up this trio of holiday crafts. You saw my Halloween contribution and the joint effort with my mom for Thanksgiving… what could be in store for the winter holidays, you might ask?

Thinking about the given theme, and what was was needed for my personal holiday decor (Christmas, specifically), I decided to make a gorgeous tree skirt since I’ve been covering my tree stand with a giant fabric scrap for the past couple of years. Before I bore y’all to tears, I must point out that this skirt is quite special in the fact that it does double duty-

YEP. You can totally wear it as a skirt for humans!

I am beyond excited about this project (seriously, it woke me up in a glorious epiphany in the middle of the night!) and hopefully y’all feel the same way. I mean, really, who doesn’t want a little kitsch in their Christmas? 😉

I mean, for god’s sake, I managed to get pictures in the snow. It never snows here (although it does snow on my blog, as a lot of you noticed ;)). It was clearly meant to be.

Want to make your own? It’s SO easy!
Just a head’s up: this tutorial required lots and lots of pictures and words, so feel free to skip if it’s not your bag. You have been warned!

First things first – let’s talk about what sort of shape works best for this type of skirt. What we want to make is a circle skirt. I’ve seen people call skirts circle skirts when they really aren’t – a circle skirt is literally a circle with a smaller circle cut in the middle of it. It doesn’t have gathering, and the edge of the hem is curved completely all the way around (i.e., no straight lines). Like this:

Mmm, looks like a donut.

You can make a circle skirt that is a seamless, continuous circle, like what you see above. However, for our purposes, we do need at least one seam so we can get the skirt over the tree. So your pattern will actually look like this, with seams:

You know, like a Poké Ball.

This pattern is really easy to draft. Seriously, the hardest part is just finding a big enough piece of paper for it (I tape lots of paper together, personally). I won’t be going over how to draft a circle skirt, but I can point you to this excellent tutorial on how to draft a circle skirt, by Casey. This is the tutorial I used to draft my pattern, and it’s really easy to understand and execute. You can make the skirt as long or short as you want it – mine is 18″. Once you have drafted your pattern, you can measure the amount needed for trim and fabric. If you’re buying before you draft, a good ballpark is 4+ yards for the main fabric, and at least 4-5 yards for any trim you sew along the hemline. This is a great project for those gorgeous quilting cottons that you can’t bear to use for apparel purposes – I got mine from JoAnn, and it was on sale whoop whoop.

Once you have drafted your pattern, you should have two pieces of fabric that look like this. The straight edges are your side seams, and the little curve in the middle is where your waist sits.

I tried to take photos to explain this, but it ended up being waaay too difficult, so here’s a little hand-drawing diagram instead!

Sew up one side seam of your skirt. On the unsewn side, you will sew velcro so the skirt can open and close. How long you make the velcro is up to you – I suggest making it go all the way down to the hem, to make it easier to put it on the tree (since the skirt will open all the way). However, if you’re like me and your swear you bought velcro but it somehow managed to not come home with you and you have to dig through your stash to find some little leftover pieces that equal maaaybe 12″ total… you can do that to, and just sew the remaining seam closed. At the top, instead of a waistband, you will sew a length of ribbon to finish the top of the skirt. If you are concerned about the skirt not staying closed while you are wearing it, you may also sew a hook and eye to keep things secure (or even make a drawstring casing for cinching it tight when it’s around the tree), but I can assure you that the ribbon does a pretty good job of not untying itself, at least on me 🙂

A few little tips for constructing the skirt-

I like to staystitch the waistline curve before I do anything- just sew a line of short stitches (if your machine sews at 2.5, reduce the stitch length to 2.0) just inside the seam allowance. Since the waistline is cut on the bias, it will stretch out of shape if it’s not secured beforehand.

To attach the velcro, first finish your seams in whatever method you prefer (mine are serged, and oops didn’t change the serger thread haha) and press under the seam allowance on one side.

Keeping close to the edge, sew the loop side of your velcro to the side seam that is not turned under (this will be the underlap of the velcro) and the hook side of the velcro to the wrong side of the turned under seam.

If your velcro does not extend to the hemline and you need to close the remainder of the seam, overlap the folded under seam allowance with the underlap and pin down.

Then topstitch!

After you have attached your velcro, you can sew the ribbon to the skirt waistline. No photos for this step, but I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

Let your skirt hang for at least 24 hours, to allow the bias to settle before you hem it – otherwise you may end up with an uneven hemline.

Then comes the fun part… embellishing! Seriously, I had sooo much fun trolling the aisles at JoAnn, trying to find the ~perfect~ sparkle trims. I ended up with pom-pom fringe (I think I used about 4 yards – again, MEASURE FIRST. That hem takes up a lot of yardage!), sequins, and glitter ribbon.

I sewed the pom-pom fringe to the bottom of my skirt by machine.

Since I couldn’t get my hands on any red, I improvised by adding a line of red sequins on top of the fringe. These are just hot-glued on; ain’t nobody got time for dealing with sequins.

My favorite part about this skirt, though (other than the fact that I can WEAR IT), are the 3-D poinsettias! I made these using felt and hot glue and it’s super, super easy, once you make a little template.

Start by drawing a petal shape that is approximately half the the desired poinsettia size. Mine is about 2.5″ long.

Now draw a circle. This doesn’t have to be perfect; it’s just a guideline for the petals.

Trace your petal shape over the circle, with the four points touching in the center of the circle.

Cut the template out and flip it over so no one can see the shame.

To assemble the poinsettias, cut two pieces of felt using the template, four additional petals (cut slightly smaller than the first petal shape), a circle for the inside, and a leaf (the leaf is just two petals with the points touching, cut as one in green felt).

Stack the template pieces like so and glue together.

Then glue on your four petals.

Attach the center (I know, traditionally, poinsettias have white centers, but my fabric had gold centers SO GOLD IT IS).

Then glue on the leaves. Done!
To make my poinsettias extra fancy, I added some beads in a bottle at the center and a healthy dose of glitter spray paint.

I put my skirt on the form with a petticoat, and just stuck the poinsettias on until I was happy with their placement (since they’re felt, they will temporarily stick without glue), then I hot glued them on.

And that’s it! It’s a tree skirt/me skirt!

I am wearing mine with a petticoat for maximum fluff, fyi.

The best part about this project?

It’s SOOOO twirly!

So I guess that’s it! I feel pretty #fabulouslyfestive, what do you think? I realize this project is probably a bit too twee for most adults, but it would be perfect for kids. Aren’t kids the best excuse for dumping a load of tacky, or is that just me?

If you managed to sit all the way through this giant post, so awesome! Here’s a coupon just for you 😉

Thanks to JoAnn Fabric and Crafts for letting me get my DIY Crafty on this season, and thanks everyone for hanging in there with me for some non-clothing-related sewing. As always, if you’d like to see more crafty goodness, you can check out the Celebrate the Season website.

Happy Holidays, y’all!

Tags: #fabulouslyfestive, Christmas 2013, completed, Jo-Ann, kitsch, quilting cotton, skirt, tree skirt

Comments 31 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

DIY Thanksgiving Table Spread

18 Nov

The next project for my holiday crafts personal challenge comes courtesy of Thanksgiving. I’ll be honest – I was a little terrified of this challenge. For one, I don’t host Thanksgiving dinner at my house – that’s what parents are for! Go to their house, eat all their food, leave the mess (but take some of the food home with you because, duh, poor and stuff). So table decorations just seem like a moot point in a home that won’t have dozens of people admiring my hard work (or secretly wondering if I’m as insane as I come across in my decorating scheme).

While complaining about this to my mom, she immediately started gushing about some handmade table runner she saw in a local gift shop, and saying it didn’t come in any color combinations that worked with her personal decor and that’s what she would make if she were participating in this project. So I had the brilliant idea to have her help me make this project – and then gift her the finished runner, since it’ll get more use on her dining room table (and, you know, people will actually see it ;)).

So, welcome to my second installment of Holiday Crafting, featuring supplies from JoAnn Fabric and Crafts, with special guests Mom’s Hands and Mom’s Dining Room.

My mom is such a decorating whiz, isn’t she? Gah, her dining room is beautiful.

We made this table runner in a short afternoon (I think it took 2 hours, tops, and that included figuring out the construction steps and taking photographs! Honestly, decorating that tablescape took waaay longer, ha!) for a minimal cost. The best part about this project is that you can choose any fabrics and embellishments you like, to really make it your own!

To make this table runner, you will need 2 yards of burlap for the base, plus half a yard each of your contrasting ruffle fabric. We also bought 2.5 yards of 7.5″ wide ungathered lace.

You will need to prewash your fabrics and press them nice and flat before cutting. My mom used baking soda in the wash with her burlap, to make it smell less like a hippie. For a 81″x42″ dining table, we cut our pieces as follows-
Burlap (or other fabric base): Since our burlap was 50″ wide, we cut it lengthwise down the middle and sewed the two pieces together to make a finished piece that is 24″ wide by 96″ in length
Ruffles: 8.5″ tall by 45″ length, cut 2
Lace: 7.5″ tall by 45″ length, cut 2

The VERY first thing you need to do is finish those edges of the burlap before they fray all over the place. We used the serger – a 4 thread overlock with a dense stitch width so the unraveling is kept to a minimum. Don’t be afraid to really cut off some width from those pieces – it’ll give the thread something to grab on so it doesn’t immediately fall off. Serge all cut edges, including the sides and the ends, as well as any piecing you may have needed to do.

Don’t have a serger? Use a narrow zigzag stitch, or even consider binding the edges with premade matching bias tape.

If you had any piecing, press the seams open with a hot steam iron so they lay nice and flat. The good thing about burlap is that the seam is virtually invisible from the outside! We left the serged edges as-is – they’re not terribly noticeable, as you can see, plus they provide some additional texture to the edges – but you can turn under the edge and stitch a narrow hem if that’s your thing.

Hem your ruffle pieces on both edges (at the top edge of this ruffle, we used a rolled hem – again, from the serger – and the bottom is serged and folded under and topstitched because, lazy.). You can also fray your fabric by stitching a line of small stitches about 1/2″ from the edge and using a pin to encourage the fraying.

Across the top of each ruffle piece, sew a line of long basting stitches (the longest stitch on your machine) 1/2″ from the edge and leave some looong thread tails. Do not backstitch either end of the stitching.

To create a ruffle, grab one of the thread tails with one hand, and hold the fabric with the other.

Holding the thread tail still, gently coax the fabric into a gather.

Continue gathering until your ruffle is the desired amount of gathered goodness, then wrap the thread tails around a pin stuck in the fabric so they stay put.

(I just love that bunny pincushion. I have it’s twin, but you couldn’t tell by just looking at it – mine is so old and used, it’s grey and threadbare and missing some body parts, ha!)

Once you’ve made your ruffles, you can get started on the fun part! Lay your ruffles on the burlap and arrange them so they look the way you want them to.

Our ruffles ended up being placed as follows:
Bottom burlap ruffle – 1/2″ from bottom edge
Middle lace ruffle – 2″ above burlap edge
Top white ruffle – 3.5″ above lace ruffle

It is also a good idea at this point to lay the runner on your table to ensure that everything is in the right place before you start stitching.

Now you can sew! Just use a normal stitch length and sew straight down the basting/gathering line you created, being careful to make sure the gathers are evenly distributed. I find it helpful to set my machine to put the needle down every time I stop sewing; then I can raise the presser foot and redistribute the ruffles if needed.

“God, Mom, stop taking pictures of me.”

Here’s how we sewed on the ruffles:

Since the two bottom ruffles are covered by ruffle hem goodness, we just laid them on top of the burlap and stitched down the middle of the gathering line.

The top ruffle was stitched upside down and then flipped over itself for a clean edge on top of the runner (the rolled hem was originally going to be exposed, which is why so fancy, but we decided it looked a liiiiittle too crafty, so it was moved to the underside).

Once your ruffles are sewn down, give them a good steam with a hot iron. Don’t actually press them – just hover the iron a couple inches above and steam steam steam. We don’t want to flatten them, just help them stay in place.

And that’s it! Pretty easy, huh? I probably spent longer writing this tutorial than it takes to actually make the table runner!

Now, I told y’all we spent foreeeeever decorating the table… and then took like 100 pictures. So now you have to look at them. Sorry, not sorry!

(those candlesticks are totally supposed to be waxy ears of corn. My mom does not understand why I think they are so hilarious).

It’s not a real #turkeytablescapes without some turky S&P shakers, yeah?
Oh, yeah, and those little red ears of corn are popcorn! My dad grew them in his garden this year, aren’t they soo cute?

I am including this picture of the chandelier/ceiling because I want everyone to know that I helped hang that… ceiling wallpaper stuff, probably about 15 years ago. I remember being SO mad at my dad for making me help (it was rough! I had to stand on a ladder and hold things on the ceiling and ugh, it took forever), and complaining, “NO ONE IS EVEN LOOKING AT THE CEILING, WHAT IS THE POINT, WHYYYYY”. So there. Look at the ceiling. LOOK AT IT.

Finally, this was our helper for the afternoon – Sweetie, my mom’s Siamese. I know Siamese cats are weird, but this cat is real weird. I love her.

So that’s it! I’m so glad I was able to incorporate one of my holiday crafts into a mother/daughter crafternoon (ha, Landon hates that word), as well as give my mom something I know that she’s thrilled to use.

Want to make your own? Snag this coupon and save some dough, yo!

As always, you can see more fun #turkeytablescapes at the Celebrate the Season website.

Tags: Jo-Ann, thanksgiving, thankskilling, turkeytablescapes, tutorial

Comments 33 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Skully Applique Pillow

24 Oct

So, I have some pretty sweet furniture, at least in my living room. I’ve got this sexi velvet couch as well as this beautiful midcentury armchair (snagged from my friend and fellow blogger Lisa, after she herself snapped up the couch of her dreams). Oh, and that ace ottoman, which I got for a DOLLAR at the Goodwill Outlet. Score of the year right there!

I’m also, like, really really bad at decorating. Once I get shit on the walls, it’s over. I don’t really decorate for holidays, other than put up a Christmas tree, and I definitely don’t do decor crafts. Whyyy suck up that time when I could be making clothes, amirite?

I’m taking a step toward my inner Martha Stewart and making at least one craft for the three major upcoming holidays – starting with Halloween. Rather than decorate the front of my house (which would be too easy; we already have enough spiders that the whole front is covered in spider webs. I wish I was kidding about that. Hey, I guess we don’t have other bugs at least), I decided to give my sweet yellow chair an update with a fresh new throw pillow featuring a skull. This also meant I got to try out applique, which is something I’ve been meaning to do for, oh, like a decade. Ha!

Want to make your own – pillow or otherwise? Good, because I wrote a tutorial on that too. I’m on a roll, guys.

This is actually pretty simple, the only time-consuming part is the machine applique, which can easily be left off since the Heat’N’Bond is pretty permanent. All my supplies are from Jo-ann Fabric and Craft stores – quilting cotton (my only excuse ever to peruse those aisles. Ahh, the colors!), Heat’N’Bond, and a 14″ pillow form. Oh, and embellishments! Can’t forget those 😉

You will need to cut 3 pieces for the pillow – one for the front and two for the envelope back. For a 14″ square pillow, I cut the front at 15.5″ square and the two back pieces are 15.5″ x 12″ and 15.5″ 6.5″.

Start by drawing (or tracing, or photocopying, or whatever) the image that you want to applique on the pillow. Try to keep it simple, with the detail impact coming from the negative space, not a bunch of lines. Do you want to sew over a bunch of lines? Neither did I. Negative space!

I sketched out my skull’n’bonez based on a few images I saw on the internet, and then traced over it with a marker.

Cut out your design and admire. Doesn’t he look sassy!

Before you cut your appliques, you need to fuse the heat n bond to the back of the fabric (this makes it easier, and means less goo on your ironing board after the fact). Cut a piece big enough to catch all your pieces, and follow the directions on the package for best results – mine just had me iron it face-down for 10 seconds. Easy!

Trace your pattern on the fabric, cut, and peel off the paper layer. Arrange it on the pillow top as you like, and fuse it down. The Heat’N’Bond keeps everything from shifting, which means a much easier time appliquing. Of course, at this point, you could leave as-is and not bother with the stitching, but whyyy? It looks so good!

Ok, this is the fun part – applique! This is really a trial and error saga, depending on your machine, but here are a few tips:
– Test your applique stitch on a few scraps of fabric (use leftover fused pieces if you wanna be real fancy) to make sure that you like your stitch. For my machine, I used a narrow width zigzag with a slight adjustment to make it longer.
– This stuff is gonna goo up your needle. Sorry, but them’s the breaks. Make sure you remember to change it out after you are finished, otherwise you’ll end up forgetting and gooing up the next garment you sew. Not that that’s happened to me or anything…
– Try to keep the stitch within the edge of your applique pieces – it looks neater.
– For curves, just go slowly. For corners, stop the machine at the end of the line, put the needle down and pivot the fabric, and then continue stitching.

Before you get all flustered trying to get the ~perfect stitch, remember – this is a Halloween project! It’s supposed to be a little messed up 😉

From here, you can leave the applique as-is or add some more embellishment. I decided to add some sequins to my skull’s eyeballs and nose because SPARKLES. I used this Aleen’s glue pen to anchor everything down.

We are going to make an envelope back for our pillow now. Take your two back pieces and press them flat.

Turn under one long edge of each piece and hem.

(Ack! Sorry these photos are so blurry, hopefully you get the idea)
Take the smaller piece and lay it over the top of front piece, right sides together, matching up the edges and the corners.

Larger piece goes on the bottom half, again, right sides together with all sides matching.

Sew around all four edges…

Clip your corners…

Flip right side out and stuff your pillow inside.

You’re done!!

Time for a sexy skull pillow photoshoot!

I know this is a ~craft~ project, but this method could also be used for clothing (like we could all applique CAT SWEATERS. Oh god, guys, let’s.). I was planning on making myself a matching skull sweatshirt so I could match my living room, but time slipped out of my fingers and well, maybe later. I say this pillow is for Halloween, but let’s be real – you’ll probably see it on the couch during Christmas, and beyond. Welcome to my life.

Want to make one for your own #spookyspaces? Have a coupon! I got ya back!

Don’t say I never did anything for ya 😉

Tags: applique, halloween, Jo-Ann, my rad house, tutorial

Comments 33 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Waverize It! Maritime Shorts

3 Sep

Ok, this is a liiiittle bit different than a normal post, but there’s still a totally rad finished product being shared, so I hope y’all can get excited about this with me 🙂 A couple of months ago, I was asked if I wanted to participate in the Waverize It! campaign, courtesy of Waverly Fabrics and Joann. I was given a piece of fabric, my only guideline being: Waverize It!

I should tell you right now, that fabric they sent me was a total surprise. Upon receiving the package, this was me:

Haha! Just kidding – I actually really like the fabric, although it’s definitely not a color that I wear or decorate with AT ALL. Coupled with the fact that it’s home decor weight, well, that narrowed my options even more. That being said, I am not one to admit defeat, so I racked my brain for a few days. I realized a couple of things:
1. Home decor weight means ~*~BOTTOM WEIGHT~*~
2. Any color can be improved by adding ~*~MORE COLOR~*~

And that was how I ended up with this amazing pair of shorts.

I used the Maritime pattern to make these shorts. I have already discussed making this pattern, so I’m not going to repeat myself – but this pattern is a pretty freaking perfect backdrop for jazz up some otherwise basic shorts.

Oh lord, did I actually use “jazzed” to describe these?

I know they look pretty plain from the front, but then you turn to the side and…

Piping! 🙂

PIPING ON BOTH SIDES, Y’ALL!

To be honest, I didn’t have much of a plan in mind when I started these up. I knew the base fabric, and I knew the pattern I would be using, and that was about it. I decided to pair the green with a solid navy (the same solid navy sateen I used in my lace trench coat) for the pocket lining, and upon realizing just how freakin’good those two fabrics look together, I thought I would add some navy love on the outside as well. I had a lot of ideas floating around while working on these shorts – piping around the pocket edging? Piping at the top of the back pockets? Piping at the waistline? Adding a navy sateen cuff? In the end, I chose to keep things simple with a single line of piping down the side seams, and a little bit of navy top stitching.

I could not be more pleased with the finished piece!
(ps do me a favor and don’t look at my legs in these pictures… I was in the midst of a mosquito attack, hence the furious scratch marks everywhere. I know they look disgusting. Ain’t nothin’ I can do about it now!)

In case you were wondering – I did make my navy shirt, too! Unfortunately, it’s kind of a Monet, though it looks fine in these photos. I will go more into that whole saga later this week with a proper post, but right now I’m still a little bit traumatized.

It’s difficult to see all the topstitching in the pictures, thanks to the lighting, but I used navy around the front and back pocket edges, the front fly, the top of the waistband, along the piping at the side seams, and around the bottom hem.

While figuring out exactly what I would do with my fabric was a little challenging, actually working with it was a total breeze! Waverly makes a nice substantial cotton that sews up like a mid-weight denim – which means it presses well, it doesn’t crazy unravel, and it doesn’t require any special handling to get it to do what you want. I didn’t even have to beef up my machine needle – a universal works fine here.

The fabric selvedge suggested that I dry clean my piece, but honestly? I don’t dry clean anything, like, ever. I can see how dry cleaning may be beneficial if you’re making curtains or whatever, but I wear my clothes hard and I don’t have time to schlep to the dry cleaner every time I inevitably spill something on myself (which is a daily occurrence, ok). Nor do I hand-wash, well, anything. Sooo needless to say, I tossed this bad boy in the washer AND the dryer, pre-cut, and I’m totally thrilled with how it softened up.

I even had a lime green zipper lurking in my stash, how perfect is that?!

The topstitching on the back pockets is my favorite part, too bad you can’t really see it in the photos! Oh well!

If you made it through this post, yay! Now here’s the fun part – to celebrate National Sewing Month and Waverly’s 90th anniversary, Waverly and Jo-Ann Fabrics are hosting a Waverize It! Facebook contest through 9/22. You definitely will want to enter this one – winner takes home a $250 Jo-Ann Fabrics gift card and $1000 in Waverly Fabrics! For more info, you can check it out here (or click below, do what you want!). Good luck, my friends!

I really enjoyed the challenge of making something with a fabric I would not have otherwise chosen – and I’m super happy with how the shorts turned out. I still have a bit left over, so tell me – what would you have done with this Waverly fabric?

~~Disclaimer: I was not financially compensated for this post. I did receive 2 yards of Waverly Fabric to review and keep. All opinions are my own.

Tags: completed, contest, Jo-Ann, maritime shorts, shorts, Waverly