Felt elf skirt tutorial

As promised, here is the felt skirt I made for the elf day at school. I searched on the web but could not find anything related to elf skirts. The web will be much better with a felt elf skirt tutorial, don’t you  agree?

you will need:

1.50 m of red felt

1 m of green felt

50 cm of black felt

a sheet of yellowish felt

7 or 8 green pompoms (but you can use red or gold)

about 4 m of green ric rac

red thread

green thread

black thread

sewing paraphernalia

Start by folding your red felt in half and in half again , same with the green felt:

Your green felt is smaller than the red. Measure the desired length. I decided i wanted my skirt to be 19 1/2″. now for the math bit: you need to measure the radius. measure your waist divide it by PI (3.14), divide the result by 2 and you have your radius. Normally with fabric you would round up the radius for comfort but I would say to not round it up or even round it down as felt stretches quite a lot.

From the folded corner measure the radius and mark from one side to the other:

cut on marked line:

Measure 19 1/2″ from the cut arc all the way round (you cannot see it very well on the pic but I have marked it)Now cut it:

you should have a perfect circle with a hole in the middle, put it aside. repeat the same steps with your green felt for the radius:

mark 10 1/2″ (I know picture says otherwise but I changed my mind!) from radius all the way round and cut:

fold it in half to mark the middle:

mark the felt from center to corners:

it should look like that:and cut:

once cut the green felt should look when open like this:

lay it on top of your red skirt, pin and tack:

we’re going to insert the zip. don’t be scared, it’s dead easy! no seam needed as it’s felt!

mark with a pen where the zip end:

mark a line from those two dots:

and cut:

insert the zip and pin it:

sew using a zipper foot all the way round:

pin the green ric-rac at the bottom of the skirt and sew:

Before I did anything else, I checked if the felt skirt was fitting nicely on my hips and it was a bit too large. This is because felt stretches quite a lot. In order to get your skirt fitting nicely I would try it on and pin some darts on the top of the skirt whilst still wearing the skirt. sew in place and check again if it fits you.

Cut a waist band from the black felt. Measure your waist and add 2″. The extra inches will overlap on the other side of waist band to hold it and make it look nice.

Here comes the tricky bit… Pin the black waist band  on the outside of your skirt and sew all the way round except the extra waist band at the end of strap (just don’t do anything yet)

to close the end of waist band fold it in half length way so that the right side of felt are touching:

pin:

sew:

turn inside out:

repeat process on the other end of waist band on the flapping bit but sew side and under:

now check that waist band is fitting you well. Again, and because I cut (no choice) the waist band and the stretchy grain of felt it was slightly too big so I had to dart on top of waist band and sew in place.

Add decorative felt buckle on the belt,  hand sew some pompoms on the green points  (I did not add a pompom tho the back green triangle for sitting comfortably),hand sew a hook to fasten the waist band and hand sew two red decorative button:

Et voila! you have a elf skirt, very in at the moment, practical for your every day tasks and warm for the cold winter that is coming!

Happy sewing everyone!

 

 

 

I’m a cotton headed ninny muggin!

Yes you would have guessed! It’s dress up time at school again and this time we have to dress up as elves… not sure why but I’m here to indulge and get creative for as little money as possible. Went online to see if I could get something cheap but either it was very tarty which is completely inappropriate for school or it was expensive. I went to Brighton to buy some felt and got creative with the boys.

 

Here is what you need to make three elf costumes:

2 m of red felt

1 m of green felt

50 cm of black felt

a sheet of yellowish felt

green pompom (but you can use red or gold)

about 4 m of green ric rac

red thread

green thread

black thread

sewing paraphernalia

3 red t-shirt

First grab those tees and lay them flat. lay a piece of paper wide enough to cover the neck, collar and shoulders:

mark with a pen the edge of the collar by feeling with your fingers (don’t worry about being precise as we are working with felt it is quite forgiving):

decide how long you want the green “leaves to hang” we decided it will be the length of the shoulders (depends on your size)

For a mall Tee the length was 3 1/4″ for a bigger one it was 4 ” etc… mark the same length all the way round, make our littl elves work by tracing and cutting:

divide the cut piece in 4 sections like so:

Mark crosses in each section to end up with this:

Cut around and now you have your front colerette pattern. repeat all those steps for the back but you don’t have to make one for the back if you don’t want to. repeat for all three tee-shirts.

Place the patterns on green felt pin and cut around:

insert a piece of cardboard inside the tee-shirts and stick the felt with fabric glue on the tees:

Press quite hard and let it dry.

Now trace on the black felt the buttons: use a 2 p coin to trace around and then cut, use the fabric glue to stick on the Tees. Three per tee is enough but you can add as much or little as you want.

now cut a 3 or 4 ” wide strip of black felt,position it on tee and cut to desired length, stick with fabric glue:

cut a rectangle of the width of the black strip and fold it in half, cut it in that way:

et voila! you now have three elf tees for very cheap!

I will post the felt elf skirt tutorial tomorrow!

See you then!

Vintage books

During half term we went for s stroll to one of my favourite National trust place: Nymans. They have a little hut with a wooden fire where they sell second hand books. I always have a little look and they most of the time haven’t got what I’m looking for. But this time however I found two great vintage dressmaking books, one from 1960 and another one from 1973.

I fell in love with this one just for the cover:

It was published for O level and the content is amazing. There’s so much information in such a little book. It is very precise and to the point. Some stitching I had never heard of and what was asked of the students was intense and time consuming. they most of the time assume you will sew by hand but as they say “you can use a sewing machine”.

The second book was just a I must have it kind of book even though I might never make any project from it. It is so passé it is hilarious!

The photos and pictures and really 70’s and some of the designs are quite sore to the eye. But I still love that book as they have some very interesting point about dressmaking.

One of my favourite page has to be that one:

It is so non PC no wonder feminism exploded. Some of the title were “getting to grips with your figure” followed by “what is your problem”… My problem?? hum… let’s move on

I think I might do this for my 9 and 7year olds:

And might make myself this exquisite quilted skirt:

Delicious!