DIY Floral Circle Skirt

Recognize this fabric? Well if you do it is from this summery tutorial I did way back in August of last year, DIY floral printed shorts. Boy, did that year just whiz by. As the new year arrives I am busy clearing out last years things, when my friend and I bought this fabric I clearly remember the shop keeper desperately trying to sell us the entire roll, 3m extra than we needed. We stood there for about 20 minutes trying to say no thank you, we don't have enough money! We barely had any pocket money left. Luckily in the end he gave the rest of it to us for free, I am sooo happy for that. Linen is the perfect circle skirt material, and I still don't have enough pocket money to go out and buy more of it. Oh the problems with being a teenager. For this DIY adventure I was inspired my a present that my mum bought me for christmas, this gorgeous Topshop dress. It is so simple, but the circleness of skirt  is incredibly flattering on any body type. I've seen many people wear circle skirts around town, it usually looks stunning.

Stuff you need:
Zipper
2m of floral linen
Sewing machine

1. Measure you waist and calculate the radius of that (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that is your waist length/2pi). Fold your fabric in half horizontally and then again vertically as can be seen below. The quarter-circle labeled w needs to have the radius of your waist. L should be length you would like your skirt to be + seam allowance. Cut along these 2 lines, once you open it all up it should look like a large donut.

2. Next cut a slit to open up the donut. Seam both the outer and inner circles.

3. Fold over the open edges and seam them up.

4. Bring the 2 edges together place the zipper face down on top, mark where it ends. Making sure both edges are touching and fronts of either side are facing each other sew from the bottom of the skirt up till the mark. Then attach the zipper. I found this tutorial really helpful.

 Spin and twirl around in this new artwork. Until next time!

DIY Ombre Pocket Skirt

I found this tutorial in Singapore’s weekly Urban newspaper late last week. It had an entire section on DIY fashion. I was so excited I waited outside for the newspaper to be delivered. The tutorial was written by Singaporean fashion label Villiand+Lovers. The skirt is super simple and well explained. Since I didn’t have any polka dotted fabric at hand when I found the tutorial I decided to go with what I a meter of plain white fabric and 2 types of blue dye.

I retyped up the instructions because it isn’t so clear in the picture:

Stuff you need:

1 meter of white cotton fabric

2 colors of dye

Elastic

Sewing machine

1.     Measure your waist size and take 8cm to 10cm off it as the measurement for the width of the skirt. Measure your desired length. Then add 8 cm to 10cm to this.

2.     Trace four pocket patterns (below) measuring 19cm by 16 cm, on the remaining cloth.

3.     Pin one pocket pattern to each side of both pieces of cloth. Each pattern should be placed 13cm from the top of the fabric. The outside of the pockets should face each other must face each other. Using a sewing machine, sew the length of the skirt fabrics at 0.5cm from the edge.

4.     Lay the two skirt fabrics on top of each other, with the pockets flapping out. The outsides of the fabric should face each other. Sew along the edges of one side of the fabrics, 1 cm away from the hem before sewing it.

5.     By now, your skirt should form a rectangle. Spread your skirt out on an ironing board. Fold the bottom hem of the skirt and iron it. Use pins to hold down the hem before sewing it.

6.     The size of the waistband should be 1.5cm more than the actual width of the elastic band. Fold the top of the skirt to form the waistband using this measurement and iron. Sew the waistband.

7.     Repeat step 4 to close up the other side of the skirt fabric. Do not sew the waistband, as you need to allow room for the elastic to go in.

8.     Secure a safety pin to one end of the elastic and pull it through the waistband loop. Remove the pin after it has gone through and sew the ends of the elastic together. Flip the skirt over and it is ready.

And here is a dip dye tutorial by Rit dye.

Have fun DIYing!

DIY Noodle Skirt

Even though I am not a big fan of them, my inspiration for this DIY were  frayed crop tops. I love the way the t-shirt material hangs when cut into several strips and sort of curls into a 'noodle'. I've seen many DIYers play with that technique to create necklaces, belts and all kinds of fun stuff but I wanted to do something different. So I decided to bring the frayed from the frayed crop top to the bottom half, in skirt form.

Stuff you need: 

Plain t-shirt

Jersey skirt

Needle and thread or sewing machine

1. Remove the top part of the tee and cut the rest of it into several strips at 2 cm intervals. The cutting lines are shown below.

2. Pin the strips to the skirt.

3. Sew them on. Make 2 rows of stitches to be secure.

4. You can either trim the 'noodles' or tie knots at the end of them to make them shorter.

Enjoy!

Before and After: French Knotted Skirt

I thrifted this dress from a 2nd hand market a couple weeks ago and only just got around to 'repairing it'. At the time I didn't think twice before buying it since it was only $4. But after trying it on I realized that the dress was incredibly ill-fitting and dirty at the top although it does look quite dainty.

But the main reason I had bought it in the first place was because I fell in love with the fabric, off-white and dotted with french knots.

So I removed the top half of the dress, added some elastic and turned it into this:

Still delicate, but actually fitting this time.

DIY Fendi Inspired Button Down Skirt + New Year Resolutions

I walked past the Italian Luxury Brand, Fendi in a shopping mall the other day and noticed a manikin wearing this bright yellow skirt. I have to admit, at first I found it a tad bit boring. But after a while I liked the button down idea on an a-line skirt, it was different. When I came home there was a pile of my dad's old shirts on my bed that I was meant deconstruct and make something out of... this was the first thing that came to mind:

Fendi-Style.com

My versions:

Stuff you need:

A large mens shirt

A strip of elastic 6 cm less than the width of your waist

Needle and thread (Sewing machine would be preferable) 

1. Draw a line from under one armhole to the other and remove all fabric above it.

2. Use another skirt or pair of shorts that doesn't have elastic and fits well to mark size of you waist. Draw a line from each marking to the bottom corner of the shirt. Draw another line for seam allowance, cut along the seam allowance line to remove excess fabric.

3. Now there should be 2 pieces of fabric, place them on top of each other make sure both insides of the shirt are facing outwards. Pin them together and sew a little further out (about 1/2 a cm) than the lines that mark the size of your waist. I drew them again on the insides of the skirt.

4. Turn it inside out and open the buttons.

4. Fold the top of the fabric inwards and pin in place. Make sure there is enough room for the elastic to fit through.

6. Use a safety pin to pull the elastic through the seam.

7. Keep the elastic in place and sew it to the fabric at both ends where the buttons and buttonholes meet. If you need to, sew those ends together.

I finally finished my list of blog resolutions yesterday, I hope you can read my handwriting... it's tiny.

Happy new year everybody! I know for sure 2012 has a lot of great DIY's in store.