What's easy, girly, and spotted all over?

If this was a crude joke, it would be some sort of female celebrity probably.

The actual answer is this skirt!

Fabrics so bright, they're glowing!

A long time ago, I bought some of this neon vinyl planning to make skirts, but it turned out to be too thick. I did incorporate it into a skirt once, so you can see that here. I made pretty much everything in these photos, but while searching for links to other posts, I couldn't find one for the skirt and fluffies. This was going to be about the shrugs and utility belt, but hey, let's toss the skirt and fluffies in too! For the one-shoulder top, check out this post.

A skirt of shirts

I probably found out about Gibbous clothing more than six years ago, and kept telling myself I would try to make something in the style since then. I even had a box set aside to collect color coordinated fabric scraps and clothes I didn't need anymore so I had materials when I finally got around to it.

During this past winter, I saw a girl dancing in a similarly styled skirt at a party and I kept thinking about it. Dammit I was going to make one!

I pulled out that box of fabric, then spent a night doing a lot of pinning, sewing, and twirling, and here's the resulting skirt!

This skirt makes me feel like a ballerina

I've been wanting to try doing a fishing line hem on something for a while, and since I've gotten comfortable using a serger over the past year I thought I'd give it a shot. I looked at a bunch of tutorials but none of them seemed to agree how heavy the fishing line should be, so I didn't really follow any one set of instructions. You can also do this kind of hem on a regular machine with a zig-zag stitch, which I might try next time just to see how it works.

This skirt was pretty easy to put together. I had some leftover organza from other projects, which I pieced into two full circles (one about 3 inches shorter than the other) with french seams. I then hemmed each circle with the rolled hem settings on my serger, carefully feeding the fishing line into the seam. It was a bit of a pain in the butt because occasionally the line would slip out of the hem and I'd have to go back a couple inches to cover it up. These spots aren't noticeable in the finished skirt, though after wearing it to a party I've noticed a couple places where the rolled hem is pulling away. the organza frays pretty easily, and I'm not sure how to keep this from happening. I've noticed it on my store bought clothes as well. Once both layers were hemmed, I added a simple elastic waist made of matching cotton.

The Care Bears taught me how to touch my toes

I used to love watching the Care Bears when I was a kid, and I'm not a fan of their new slimmed down reincarnations. When I saw this curtain panel with the chubby bears at a thrift store, I knew I had to make a skirt out of it.

Yes, this is another circle skirt.

One of the stores I go to regularly has a large selection of this shiny spandex that I keep using. I've posted 5 projects with this fabric already, and can tell you there's at least one other I didn't get pictures of. (For the curious: these skirts, this fitted dress, and these two circle skirt dresses.)

Recently, they had this variant of it that has dots cut out. I know I make a ton of circle skirts, but I really wanted to make something I would definitely wear with this awesome fabric. I had some trouble deciding what color to line it with, and eventually went with this bright yellow/green.

Starry starry skirt ~

As you might recall, I posted about a ruffled star print chiffon skirt a little while ago here and also on Reddit. One of the commenters there mentioned using a sparkly fabric under the chiffon for a different effect. I've done something similar with other clothes, and I had the same fabric in some other colors, so I figured I'd try it out! For the lining, I used the same holographic print fabric as in this top from earlier in the year.

I'm not sure what to call this - A dress? Overalls?

Back in August, a Reddit user was giving away a couple vintage patterns and I snagged this baby:

It's Le-Roy/Weldons number 9135, which is a brand I've never even heard of. I love the overall bib type top - it looks a lot like the backless dresses that were super popular this summer. I wanted a skirt that was a bit fancier, and had also recently acquired this Japanese sewing book (Otome no Sewing). It includes a pattern for a super cute gathered skirt with a yoke.

I then found this great flannel at the $1.99 fabric store. Put all that together, throw in some lace, and here's the result!

I had to get someone to help me fit the back because trying to do it myself when there's so little fabric was quite difficult.

This chiffon fabric sat in a pile on my floor for months.

I knew I wanted to make a ruffly skirt out of it as soon as I got it, but it's a pretty intimidating project because of all the hemming and gathering.

I took a while to figure out the easiest way to hem the chiffon. Eventually I settled on a serged rolled hem with wooly nylon thread. Wooly nylon thread is not twisted, so it spreads out and fills in some of the space between stitches. I hadn't done this before, but thought it would make a nice little border (and it's fast!) Once I decided on this, the skirt seemed less intimidating.

I didn't have a pattern (this type of skirt really doesn't need one since it's all rectangles) though I based the measurements on another skirt I own. They ended up as follows:

waistband 38" (with elastic 28")
first ruffle 54" (one width of the fabric)
second ruffle 108" (2 widths)
third ruffle 216" (4 widths)

each ruffle is 7" long and the overlap between them is  about 2".

I used a white base fabric for the ruffles. Since the chiffon is sheer, it creates light and dark stripes, which I really like.

The waistband is a simple elastic waistband.

There's always ghosts touching you

I found this super cute ghost fabric the last time I went to the $1.99 Fabric store, which is soon to be $2.99.

Nooooooooo ~

I mean, that's still good.

The fabric is very soft and sheer, so I decided on one of my usual designs - a bubble skirt. Once I had the skirt, I thought I should have a matching top... and (what a surprise) I made one.

Holy hell I actually finished the Victorian project.

Alright! So, earlier this year I was hired to do some art for a card game, Moriarty's Machinations. Part of my involvement with the game was dressing up in character as Irene Adler to advertise at a couple conventions, including the Boston Festival of Indie Games. (We won the award for best indie tabletop game by the way, which was super exciting!)

It has been a long time since I posted about my Victorian costume. Check out the project's tag for all the related posts. I started it back in 2011, as an independent study course in college, and then didn't finish it after the class was done. There was only a couple things left to do by the time I got this job that required me to have a period costume, so it finally motivated me to finish.

Here's my original rendering. I think I got pretty close.

The fabric isn't authentic at all. I used a striped velveteen synthetic (it feels luxurious at least) and a heavy plum sateen (probably poly). I also didn't stick very closely to one part of the Victorian Era. The anachronisms aren't so strong that a casual observer would notice them.

I don't think I'm qualified to fly this broom.

The other day I was looking for a fabric in my stash and ran into this cool flocked organza that had completely slipped my mind. I promptly forgot what I was doing and made a skirt and hat for a witch costume. I'm going to a couple Halloween dance parties next month so this will get put to use soon at least.

The fabric is a transparent purple with black spiderwebs. I wanted the webs to pop so I used a fuchsia lining. The skirt is a circle skirt with the hem gathered to the lining to make it bubble. It has a spandex waistband.

I wonder if people will notice there's naked ladies on my skirt.

I think it's kind of funny to cover a naked lady with clothing that has naked ladies on it. I couldn't help myself when I saw this fabric. I love the colors and the pattern, which just looks like some generic Hawaiian design at first glance... but then you realize these ladies aren't wearing any clothes.

I'm rarely able to justify spending more than a couple dollars per yard for fabric for myself, especially because I have some great discount stores around. With this one being around $10 a yard, I only went for one. I wish I had a lot of it. This severely limited what I could make.

I usually go for full skirts, but since I had so little fabric to work with, I picked a narrow, high waisted pattern. It's the bottom portion of Simplicity 3673. The pattern is out of print now, but I highly recommend it.

This fabric is a strange shade of brown.

I've had this awesome polka dot fabric for a long, long time. I bought a bunch of it thinking I would make some circle skirts for sale. It's synthetic, but made to mimic the texture of silk shantung. I think this makes the skirt easy to wear in both casual and semi-formal outfits.

The fabric looks great on both sides so I decided to make the skirt reversible. I also wanted it to be easy to fit (and reverse), so I made it a wrap skirt.

This faux fur skirt is like another one I made, but different.

A while ago, I bought some really awesome faux fur at one of my local discount fabric stores and listed a skirt made out of it on Etsy. I've had a significant interest in this skirt, but can't seem to find more of the fabric anywhere! I've been trying to find a replacement the past month or two without much luck. You can find the previous post about this skirt here.

For my new skirt, I wanted to use a fur that had the same two color effect as this one. The following is the closest I could find. It's more "flecked with pink" than "pink tipped with white."

I also made this fishnet top (and can't get more of the fabric... this is what I get for shopping at discount stores!). Check out this post for details.

"This looks like some kind of bacteria in a petri dish... and these are clearly pigs"

I see a lot of hippie wrap skirts in photos from music festivals and other such things, and they seem both cute and functional. They also look like a fairly easy project. Come on, wrap skirt? It doesn't even have to be an exact size!

I do my own tie-dying sometimes, so I feel like I'm cheating a bit here, but I used some cool batik fabric remnants I bought. The prints on them are flowers and bears (or bacteria and pigs if you ask one of my friends).

I've decided to start doing tutorials. First up: wtf are culottes anyways?

I mean, this is a tutorial for culottes? a skort? A split-skirt. That's probably most accurate.

According to internet sources (aka Wikipedia) culottes are any women's garment that looks like a skirt but is pants. They used to be a men's garment kind of like knickerbockers. (I just wanted to use the word knickerbockers.) It seems much more accurate to call the women's version a split skirt.

Someone linked me to a pattern for some culottes made to look like a circle skirt a while ago, but I can't justify buying a pattern for something I can easily do, even if I rarely have the motivation to draft these things. I convinced myself this time around by deciding to do a tutorial as I went along, and here it is!

Videogames? Videogames.

The past couple years there has been a Mario (the game) themed event in my area. I made the skirt I wore last time out of red pvc, but it's kind of annoying to wear so I wanted to do something different. I don't wear red much lately because of my hair color, but I did want to use this shirt because it's the only one I have that fits the theme. The colors in the shirt were limited, and I didn't want to buy new fabric for a one-time outfit, so... well... red pvc. I've reached the end of it, which is why there's some white added in.

It's a simple circle skirt, unhemmed, with a spandex waistband zigzagged on to preserve stretch. As usual, there's also some elastic in the waist for a little extra support. Sewing the waistband on was pretty horrible because I didn't need to stretch the spandex much. Since it wasn't stretched yet, it kept stretching out of shape and pulling/bunching while I was sewing it. In the future, I think I'll cut spandex waistbands smaller (which I usually do) so I have to stretch it to fit the rest of the skirt and prevent the bunching. I could have re-done this, but... It'll be dark at the event. It's fine.

I don't know why I didn't mention this shirt last time I posted it, so I will now. I bought a little kids' shirt and cut off the collar and arm binding because those were much too tight. I thought I would have to do more work than that but without the bindings it fit fine.

Laid out, the skirt looks kind of like a pokeball (woo, multipurpose). You can see how the panels are placed here. This was the best arrangement to maximize use of what I had of the red without having a ton of panels. In the end, I really like how it came out with the white.