Petal Skirt Construction?

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Permalink Reply by spider baby on February 26, 2009 at 10:21am

that is a very festive looking skirt.
perhaps places like http://www.threadbanger.com/ would help..
they give tutorials on how to reconstruct clothes into other fabulous clothes..
i love that site...

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Permalink Reply by miss megan on February 26, 2009 at 10:25am

ooh thanks! looks like a great resource :)

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Permalink Reply by Kristen on February 26, 2009 at 1:42pm

Try http://www.craftster.org as well. I have found so many tutorials and inspiration photos there. I decided I'm going to make my own skirts and dresses so I'm going to buy a sewing machine soon. Let us know if you find a tutorial! :-)

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Permalink Reply by Audra on February 26, 2009 at 1:53pm

I made a fairy skirt like this...looks like strips were cut out of several differnt fabrics and then the edges were surged...if that is the case you would need a surger and would have to learn how to use one. They are very expensive and difficult to thread. I'm not sure what you could do instead to keep the edges from fraying. Maybe you could sew the strips part of the way down and the just let the unsewn ends fray...that might actually look cool. Good luck!!!

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Permalink Reply by miss megan on February 26, 2009 at 3:16pm

Thanks for the tips :) In other pictures of the skirt, each strip is shown as a separate piece and I was thinking maybe I could cut out two strips for every piece and sew them together back to back to prevent fraying. But I don't know much about sewing so I don't know if that would work. Thanks for your advice though!! :)

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Wagstrom on February 26, 2009 at 3:49pm

Gah, that is gorgeous! It looks like it's just strips of fabric sewn to a wide band. Good luck! Please share when you've made yours!

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Permalink Reply by Tink on February 26, 2009 at 4:37pm

It looks like there is a full skirt of crinkled blue gauze underneath the strips (there are at least 6 different patterns in the strips), then the triangles, all of which are layers together and sewn onto the shirred elastic hip band.

You will need:
hip measurement
hip-to-ankle measurement
hip-to-floor measurement
blue crinkled gauze fabric (or a ready made skirt)
6 or more old saris, patterned skirts or pants
Shirred elastic fabric, or fabric and a lot of elastic
a lot of pins
lots of thread
sewing machine
scissors or rotary cutter
tape measure
straightedge
a few hours

How to make:

Cut the old skirts into strips 4-6 inches wide. Finish the long edges with a zigzag stitch (on a regular sewing machine) or rolled hem (on an overlock/serger). Cut to length as desired: hip-to-ankle plus a bit for sewing should be right.

Cut enough triangles to fit around your hip (or cut a sawtooth crown shape). Finish the pointy edges the same way as the strips. Sew the triangles or crown together to form a tube the size of your hips. It is important that this fits properly, so check it.

Make the blue gauze skirt by taking two long rectangles - hip-to-floor length plus a few inches - and sew up both sides. Hem the skirt. Baste a row of stitching near to top to gather the skirt, but don't worry about the gathers yet. If you are starting with an old skirt, cut off the elastic top or ties and sew in the gathering basting.

Make the elastic hip band by first hemming the top edge of the fabric. Then apply rows of slightly stretched elastic to the back of the fabric. The one in the picture has about 8 rows. Sew the elasticized fabric into a tube so it fits snugly over your hips.

Create a sandwich of all the parts of the lower skirt: use the triangle tube as the master size. With the triangles right side out, and unfinished top edge up, pin the strips onto the back/inside of it, with the top edges of the strips aligned with the top edge of the triangle tube, arranging and overlapping the strips to fill to all the way around the triangle tube.

Then on the blue skirt, draw in the basting to gather the skirt to the right circumference at the top and pin the gauze skirt underneath the strips, with the top edge of the skirt aligned to the top edge of the tube and strips.

You should see the bottom part of the skirt taking shape now. make sure everything is facing the way it should when it is finished. Adjust as desired. You can baste this together to hold it in place without the pins, or sew the whole thing at once with the hip band.

Finally, turn the elastic hip band inside out (so you can see the elastic and slip it over the outside of the skirt sandwich. The top of the band will be facing downwards. Pin its raw edge to the unfinished edges of the triangles, strips and skirt.

Now you sew through all those layers, around the hip line. Flip the elastic band up and you will have a skirt similar to the one in the photo. You may want to trim the hipline seam and finish it with a zigzag stitch to keep it from unravelling.

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Hope that makes sense. Please ask if you need clarification.

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Permalink Reply by miss megan on February 26, 2009 at 4:46pm

omg, you rock.

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Wagstrom on February 27, 2009 at 7:38am

Oh, awesome. I may have to make one of these, too!

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Permalink Reply by Kristen on February 27, 2009 at 2:00pm

You are awesome, Tink. I'm saving this to my clothing tutorial favs.

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Permalink Reply by Tink on February 27, 2009 at 4:01pm

I do a lot of sewing and pattern making for myself and friends, so I am glad to be able to share what I've learned over the years.

The skirt will be time consuming since all the edges have to be finished and there is a fair amount of fussy pinning and arranging, but the overall difficulty of the skirt is low with really stunning results. I might even make one myself.

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Permalink Reply by spider baby on February 26, 2009 at 8:10pm

wow tink you really know your stuff !!

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