I bought a bright orange tee-shirt dress last year off the sale rack... I love the color and the cut of the top half, but I found myself avoiding wear it. I think it was just a little bit too much orange. Thus, I decided to cut off the bottom of the dress and turn it into a top/tunic. But what to do with the fabric I trimmed off the bottom? Skirt for Miss Zoe.
The skirt is pre-hemmed, which rules, so all I had to do was conquer my fear of sewing with knit fabrics, set my machine to zig-zag stitch, and add an elastic waistband. Quite easy.
Then, inspired by this tutorial on Craftiness is not Optional, I added some reverse applique embellishments to the skirt using squares of knit fabric cut out of a couple of old tank tops that I never wear because they are... how can I put this delicately? I can't: they're arm pitty. Gross. But besides the armpits, the rest of the fabric was totally usable.
I traced evenly-spaced circles onto the skirt hem using a round cookie cutter, backed each circle with a square of contrasting color fabric, sewed around the circle, then trimmed the extra fabric on both sides.
The inside of the skirt, halfway through the embellishing:
... from the outside:
And the final product:
I sewed around each circle three or four times with contrasting color thread, not worrying about getting the circles exactly perfect. I like the slightly chaotic stitching style, a la Alisa Burke, whose mixed media, free style sewing I have been admiring for a while now. Also, sewing knit fabric in a small circle is hard, so there's that, too. Ha.
I think with a little white t-shirt, this will be a pretty rockin' outfit.
