So I have a bit of a love affair. I am in love with everything about Anthropologie – their clothes, their accessories, kitchen items and their window displays. It is a store full of pretty!
Unfortunately Anthropologie’s regular price tags are a little too much for my budget (thank goodness for the sale room!!)
So today I want to show you a skirt that looks like it came straight out of Anthropologie.
Isn’t it cute. But guess what? It didn’t come from Anthropologie and it didn’t have an Anthropologie price tag.
This skirt came from my craft room – yes, I made it and I can’t wait to show you how. When I made the skirt I didn’t initially intend for it to be a tutorial so my photos are a little lacking. I don’t have photos of each step but hopefully there is enough for you to get a good idea how I did it.
A few weeks ago a few friends and I went to a local bazaar and met a lady who was making the most darling children’s skirts out of old sweaters. She added cute little embellishments and they looked like they could have come from Anthropologie. We decided if she could make them for little people why couldn’t we make them for big people!
After leaving the bazaar we headed straight to Goodwill to pick up a few sweaters.
I found this red large, J Crew men’s sweater for 6.99 and it just screamed skirt to me – can’t you just see it! I also found a gray one that I’m going to make into a skirt for myself.
This is a little confusing and hopefully I’ll make sense but a few tips for deciding what size sweater you need. You have two options, depending on the size and height of the person you are making the skirt for. Tessa is tall so I needed a sweater that was long enough from the underarm on down because the part above the underarm was too narrow from seam to seam to fit over her hips. Make sense??? The body of the sweater below the armpit area is wider than above where the sleeves are attached. This is the part of the sweater I used to make the skirt.
If the width of the sweater is large enough to fit over the hips between the sleeves up top then you can use the whole body of the sweater from the neckline down.
The first thing I did was cut the sleeves off and then cut the top of the sweater off at the underarm.
I also cut the ribbing off of each sleeve. I used the ribbing from the sleeves and the neckline to make embellishments.
The ribbing along the bottom of the sweater will be the hem of your skirt. I used one of Tessa’s other skirts as a pattern. Laying it on top and then cutting out the sweater slightly bigger, leaving a seam allowance on both sides and enough on top for an elastic casing. I serged the side seams together and then serged around the waistline edge before turning it over and making a casing for elastic.
Be sure and try the skirt on after sewing up the side seams to check the length before sewing down the waistband.
The next part is the fun part – the embellishment and what makes the skirt look like it came right out of the Anthropologie catalog.
I sewed the two sleeve ribbing pieces together and then serged the raw edge to make the large flower embellishment. You can also use the neck edge to make a flower. Just run a gathering stitch through the serged edge and gather it up together Take a few stitches to hold the center together.
For the flower on the skirt I used the two sleeve ribbings sewn together.
I used some ecru crocheted lace I had to make the little flower on the inside of the bigger flower and then just added a button for the center.
The leaves are cut from some wool houndstooth suiting I had.
I just cut them free hand and then stitched them down onto the skirt, leaving the edges raw. I then tacked the large knit flower down.
Then I made a few little rosettes out of the houndstooth fabric and some lining fabric. For a great tutorial on making the rosettes go here.
They were tacked down to the skirt too and we were good to go!
Isn’t it stinkin’ cute!!!
Now I can’t wait to get to work on the sweater I bought for myself! So what do you think?
Shared at:http://www.creationsbykara.com/2010/11/look-what-i-made-11-24-2010.html
http://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/2010/11/pity-party-13.html
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