Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Jumper Skirt out of a T-Shirt Tutorial (w/ pics)















(the first jumper skirt I made before tutorial)

This was my first tutorial I submitted to Threadbanger.com and CutOutAndKeep.net, it got such a great response that it was featured on CraftZine's newsletter and blog and it was picked #2 on CutOutAndKeep.net's Best of 2008
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**Jumper Skirt out of a T-Shirt Tutorial**
(Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5
scroll to bottom for license)

What you will need:
*1 XL (Extra Large) t shirt
*1 pair of scissors
*1 sewing machine
or
*1 good sewing hand
*1 set of straight pins
or
*1 set of glass tipped straight pins (recommended)
*1 Iron
*1 Yard stick, ruler, or measuring tape
*1 piece of tailor chalk, crayon, or water soluble pencil (in a contrasting colour)
*1 Seam ripper, nail scissors, or cuticle remover
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Time:

Depending on your experience this project should take:
1 hour. 2 hours at the most.
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NOTE: Each step that instructs you to sew; use a number 2 zig-zag stitch to retain stretch in the t shirt.
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On your workspace, lay out your shirt; we are going to divide the shirt into three pieces:
the skirt, the straps, and the waistband.


The straps will be cut first.

Step 1.
You will need to remove the stitches from the bottom hem of the shirt. Do this by using either your scissors, nail cutter, or cuticle remover, or seam ripper


Once you have removed all the stitches, it will look like this.

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Step 2.

Press open the unstitched hem with your iron.
It should look something like this when you are done:

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Step 3.

Measure and mark 5" from the bottom of the newly opened hem and measure and mark 14" across. Cut this rectangle out from both sides of the shirt. *Do not cut up on the fold at the edge of the shirt! This will give you two short pieces*



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Step 4.

After you have cut out the piece, you will have a 5"x 28" strip.
Fold fabric in half along the longest side of the strip, pin along the newly cut edge, and cut across along the fold.


Now you have two long strips of fabric.

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Step 5.

Fold each piece in half along the longest side, pin, and sew raw edges together.


When finished cut off the excess seam allowance.

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Step 6.

With the straps you can do one of three things:
1 You can leave them as they are and not turn them inside out.
2 Press the straps with the hem in the middle
3 Turn the straps inside-out and press seam on one side.

If you decide to turn the straps inside-out:

Attach a safety pin to one end of the straps.
Guide the safety pin inside of the strap as if it were a casing for elastic.
Keep guiding it through until the entire strap has the seam on the inside.


Another look at turning the strap inside-out.



Finally, pin down with glass tipped pins and press flat with iron (starch is recommended) with seam on one side.
These are your strap pieces. Set aside.
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Right now your shirt bottom should look something like this. Next is the waistband.

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Step 7.

You cut two separate parts from the shirt, one from the bottom of the shirt, another from the top of the shirt.

Measure and mark a 5"x10" (the 10" should be what is left of the bottom)


Cut. Do not cut up along the fold.

You should have a 5"x20" rectangle.
This is your first waistband piece. Set aside.

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Step 8.

For the skirt measure and mark an 18"x21" rectangle from the new bottom of shirt, pin both the top and under sides of shirt, cut this out from both sides of the shirt.

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Step 9.

Flip over pieces, right sides together, and pin only the longer sides together. Sew the pinned sides.
This is your skirt piece. Set aside.

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Step 10.

For the second waistband piece; cut off sleeves from the left-over of shirt, open at seam.


Lay your first waistband piece on top of the largest piece from the chest or back panel of shirt top, pin, and cut around your original waistband piece. These are your waistband pieces.

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Step 11.

Each person's size is different so "pinch and pin" sides of waistband to get desired fit. Make sure to leave room for slipping the skirt on. Mark, and sew.

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Step 12.

Pleat the skirt to the waistband, remember to pin the side seams of the waistband and skirt together first, to get an even match of pleats.

Pin pleats, and sew.

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Step 13.

To finish the raw edges, sew a 1/2" hem at both ends (bottom edge of skirt, and top edge of waistband)
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Step 14.

Attach straps to waistband: about 3" from side seam at the front.
Adjust the strap length to your desired fit, pin straps ends to the back of waist band 3" from side seams, pin.
Sew each strap end at top of waistband seam with a box stitch (a continuous stitch that creates a box with and X on the inside, pictured below)

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Final Step!

Try on, make any size adjustments. Since this is made from a t-shirt, there should still be stretch when fitting on the jumper skirt. If not, adjust waistband with an elastic band or a zipper.

Enjoy!

I enjoy mine with a ninja turtle shirt!

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic License.