Ruffle Skirt

So when I saw this Cute Ruffle SkirtI knew I had to make one...  To make it more my style I found this cute fabric for the perfect price at walmart of all places... they are doing a fashion fabric road show. all the fabric is $5.00 for 5 yards!!!  so you have to buy the whole bolt(5yards), but i was fine with that. cause I tend to make mistakes.... so go check out your walmart.  I love this fabric, it's like a satin but much heavier. it says it has some polyester in it to... so it's slightly stretchy... perfect...

Ok, so I pretty much followed the tutorial from ruffles and stuff.   If i had a t-shirt I would have totally done the t-shirt waist band... best idea ever.. but I didn't so here's what i did.

1. cut out your main skirt... you are basically making a trapazoid. I hope that's the right shape... I can't remember...   anyway. take the measurment of your waist, divide by two cause you will have a front and back, then add at least an inch for seam allowance. then decide how flared you want your skirt, i did a 45in bottom, again divide by two and add an inch. then mark a "middle" that's where you'll center your measurements.... make appropriate measurments and mark. waist, length and bottom.  then cut off the excess... i hope that makes sense..

2. for my waist band I did an elastic, but I didn't do the elastic until the very end, but I did sew the casing for the elastic. So i just folded about 1 inch down and sewed the very bottom edge, (I did leave about a 2inch opening so I could feed the elastic at the end). 

 3. Cut your ruffle strips. I did (6) 5" strips. Hem one edge...

 4. Ruffle the unfinished edge. if your fabric frays, use fray check, that glue stuff...

 5. for your first ruffle I had the top of my ruffle fabric touch the stitch from the waistband.  pinned it, pinning is essential cause you can see if your ruffle is too tight and make adjustments to fit the skirt...   then sew along the ruffled seam. 

 6. I always start and end a few inches from the edge so I can sew the ruffles together before finishing. So once you get here stop.
I flip only my ruffle inside out so the right sides are face together. 
Then sew the edges together. 
 Flip your ruffle back. and finish sewing to the skirt, the nice thing about ruffles is that if you have excess your just ruffle it up and sew it in...

 Ruffle 1 done...
7. So my ruffles were anywhere from 3.5 to 4 inches by the time i did the hem and sewed to the skirt. so in order to cover the stitching of the next ruffle I measured 3inches from the ruffle down, and pinned, then sewed.  Repeat for however many ruffles you do.

 8. For the belt. I just took some ribbon, lined it up with that same waistband stitch and sewed both edges of the ribbon. It's great cause it hid that top ruffle.
 9. when the ribbons meet I just do a fancy triangle type fold and sewed it down.

 It makes it look like ties.. but don't worry I cover it up...
 10. so cut several circles. I did 10. all different sizes. you could use a template, I just eyeball it, cause when they get burned you can't tell if they are uneven.

 burn the edges...

 then rather than stacking neatly on top of each other I stagger mine.

 Looks like this...

 Then hand sew to the skirt, while doing this I added a few beads in the center...

I forgot to get pictures of this part, but after i had everything on I fed my elastic through my casing and finished the edge....

 All DONE!!!!  can't wait to wear it! please forget my tube socks...

I linked up to Tatertots and Jello, this is huge link up party, so go check it out...

and

and entered Crystal's Craft Challenge

Photo Quilt = GREAT PRESENT

This makes a GREAT gift for that hard to buy for parent or granparent. This is what my siblings and I gave my Dad. The only down fall is that it is outdated anytime someone has a child...  My sisters and I had one day to get it done so we had to make it pretty simple.  For the pictures and in the bottom right corner we put his favorite scripture, you just print your picture onto a printable fabric, like this Pabric Soft - Print and Sew (10 Sheets), i got mine at joanns. we kept all the squares 5x5 then just added a border. then fabric that we used for the back we allowed enough to fold over the top for binding. Anyway, it may take a day's work but believe me the hard work is WORTH it. It was by far the best present I've ever made... My parents decided it was too nice to use so they hung it on a wall...

 I linked my idea to this great blanket party.

What's great about this, is that you can donate blankets that will be sent to needy kids... go check it out!

Kids/baby hooded towels!

 So my oldest sister had her 6th baby in August. She has everything, so I was kind of lost as what to get her. But at the time I was making these baptism towels for my nieces and nephews that are getting baptized. Go check out here tutorial, it's great. So I just decided to go ahead and make a baby version.  I did the baby's enitial with a few flowers at the bottom. and a flower in the hood as well. The hood is just a wash cloth sewed onto the towel. They turned out great.

Here is poor Ethan modeling the baby girls towel...

I kept going!

So after doing my first t-shirt inspired by tearosehome, I kept going. I'm in love with the ruffles.

1. So but one t-shirt into 2inch strips and sew together, I think I did all six strips together for one long strip and ruffle down the middle.

2. for this one I started pinning half way down the v-neck and went around the neckline.

3. then came back around to where I started and then just turned and went back following the v-neck just matching where my other ruffle ended.

I stopped at three ruffles but do whatever you like.

4. I kept my ruffle attached and just sewed what I had pinned. Just down that same ruffle stitch.

5. once you've sewed your ruffles in place you'll start your flower. I went ahead and overlapped my ruffles with the first outer circle of the flower. This makes the flower cover up the unsightly curved of the ruffle.

6. so just sew and curve your ruffle into the flower until you reach the middle. I did add a smaller flower on the other side to cover up the other ruffle curve.

All done!!

I did this one...

then this one!

TRY IT OUT! YOU'LL BE HOOKED... again go check out




 she is amazing. and
. there are so many good ideas floating around!

H&M/TeaRoseHome inspired t-shirt

So I read the blog http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/ regularly. I 've been so inspired by her t-shirt make overs. I've kept my eye out for cheap t-shirts and I finally found target t-shirts for $1.00!! seriously I had a dance in the store and then bought like 12. So be prepared for t-shirt overload. Anyway I have this shirt from h&m which I love and combined that idea with this from tearosehome. and came up with this.
So to do it. you need two of the same shirt. One to cut up. I cut my strips into two inch strips. I did however many I could get until you hit just below the armpit, I got 8.

2. then using 6 strips I made three long strip by sewing two of the strips together. You have to cut open your strips to sew them together. Once you have your 3 long strips, ruffle by sewing on the edge. I now there are many ruffle techniques. so do what works for you. If i set my machine to the longest stitch and the tightest tension it automatically does it.

3.Pin your ruffle to your shirt. I wanted to do mine like the H&M tee where it didn't follow the neck line. this is the front.

this is the back.

4. Sew along the same ruffle stitch.

5. add your second ruffle just below the first and sew. continuing with however many ruffles you want.

6. For the flower with the two remaining 2inch strips, sew them together as well, then ruffle down the middle of the strip rather than the edge. then I just form my flower as i sew. I start on the outer edge and sew along the same ruffle stitch, except as you sew you'll sew around in a spiral. It's kind of tricky cause your sewing in the middle of all the ruffles. but slowly keep sewing your ruffle in a spiral until you get to the middle. if you strip is too long just trim it. I hope that was explanitory enough. anyway should end up like this! It's cute on. I'll have to take a picture the next time I wear it! good luck!

I linked to crystal's blog and