Thursday, August 20, 2015

Refashion Runway Sew-Along: Maxi Skirt

I'm back from a long weekend road trip and finally posting last week's refashion project! This one was another Refashion Runway/The Refashioners double-play! The Refashion Runway challenge this past week was to make a maxi skirt or dress, and of course, the ongoing theme of The Refashioners 2015 is giving new life to men's dress shirts. And so I chose to create a maxi skirt from - you guessed it - men's dress shirts.

I selected four shirts in varying shades of blue and one white shirt to turn into an ombre tiered skirt.

Ombre Tiered Skirt - BeforeOmbre Tiered Skirt - Before

But first, I had a little too much fun taking my before pictures!

Ombre Tiered Skirt - Before

Ombre Tiered Skirt - Before

So anyway, I started to cut up the shirts into wide strips. I cut the body off below the pocket and trimmed off the button band. (Don't worry, no buttons were wasted in the making of this skirt - they all went into the button stash!) I also cut a chunk out of the upper back and the sleeves.

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In ProgressOmbre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

I even picked out the pocket and cut pieces from the upper fronts on the white shirt in order to get enough fabric for that bottom tier.

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

For the two palest blue shirts, I cut strips from the body, upper back, and sleeves, but I didn't need the upper fronts. Just the body and sleeves were needed from the medium blue shirt. The darkest blue shirt only required I salvage the body and upper back, but I also cut a narrower strip from the body to create a waistband. Then I began to attach all my pieces together into big loops, first with a straight stitch, then a zig-zag to keep the edges from fraying too badly in my sad, serger-less world.

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

I pressed all the seams, and when the dust settled, I had six looooong loops of fabric...

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

Then I began to attach each tier to the one above, treating the waistband as the top-most tier. Some people like to use a basting stitch and then gather the fabric to create ruffles, but I prefer the midpoint-pin method. Basically, I pin the two layers together in one place. Then I find the point directly opposite on each loop (usually it's the side seams, but that wouldn't work this time with my frankensteined loops) and pin those two spots together. Then I find the midpoint between the pins on each loop and pin those spots together. And so on and so forth until I have a pin every few inches. Then I just pinch little pleats as I sew to gather up the rest.

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In ProgressOmbre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

Once each tier was attached, I then top-stitched for a nice, finished look.

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

After the skirt was all in one piece, I went back up and finished the waistband. That way, I'll be able to try on my skirt before deciding how much to hem at the bottom. I folded the waistband downward in half and stitched all around. Then I folded it downward again and stitched all around except for a couple inches to insert my elastic in the next step. I even stuck one of the shirts' laundering tags in there (they all had similar laundering instructions, so I just picked the tag that was in the best condition).

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In ProgressOmbre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

I cobbled together two mismatched pieces of 1" elastic salvaged from other projects because who cares if you can't see it anyway, right? Then I used a giant safety pin to feed it through the casing. Some zig-zag stitching joined the ends of the elastic, and then I could close the gap in the waistband.

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

Finally, I was able to put my skirt on and get a better idea of the length before hemming the white tier at the bottom.

Ombre Tiered Skirt - In Progress

The addition of a navy blue tee completed the ombre look. Sadly, I don't have a dark blue belt or white shoes, but oh well!

Ombre Tiered Skirt - After

Ombre Tiered Skirt - After

Ombre Tiered Skirt - After

Ombre Tiered Skirt - Before & After

8 comments:

  1. This just took me back to childhood when I wore a three tiered skirt all.the.time! I think I need a tiered maxi skirt now!

    I know the white belt matches the bottom tier, but I wonder if a brown belt might look better?

    JJ
    www.dressupnotdown.blogspot.com

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    1. Me too! I remember so many tiered skirts from my adolescence, but I've seen a lot of them around Pinterest lately too. They seem to be making a comeback!

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  2. Wow, I cannot imagine the dedication it took to make that skirt! The ombre effect is SO cool, though I don't think I would have had the patience to take apart each shirt AND THEN make so many tiers for the skirt haha! Well done!! :)

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    1. The ruffling was definitely the worst part. So many, many, many miles of ruffling, it seemed... :/

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  3. I love this skirt! Thank you for posting this.

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