Another T-shirt remake: Three T-shirts = 1 cute ruffled skirt

So, a few days ago, I was blog cruising, aka looking at other people's blogs to see what ideas I could steal come up with, and I came across a tutorial for an Anthropologie skirt knock-off. I have to admit, I'd never even heard of Anthropologie before I started reading other people's blogs, and I would have to say that I probably like most of their stuff since I want to try to knock off so many ideas of theirs that I see. Anyways, the tutorial from Ruffles and Roses inspired me, and Holy Craft gave me the idea to use t-shirts to do it at this tutorial.
So: Here's the skirt. I love it!

Want to see how I did it? I have a few (very few, sorry! The other tutorials are much better than mine, so if you want to see more details, check them out!)

First of all, I started with 3 large t-shirts. One dark grey, one light grey, and one black. The dark grey one was the one I was going to make the base of my skirt, and it was an XL or XXL (found these at the thrift store, in the men's section. Total cost: $2.75 :)

I cut off the bottom of the dark grey shirt. This ended up being just the right length for me. I was going to add some length to the bottom with ruffles, so I wasn't too concerned about it being too short. It's probably a good thing I'm not very tall (5'6'').

Ok, this picture is hard to see what's going on, but I basically laid a skirt that I knew fit me on top of my skirt base, and traced around it, leaving a seam allowance, then cut away the excess. Then, with right sides together,  I sewed up the sides. Easy!

Next, I started working on my first ruffle. I wanted the bottom ruffle to be black, so I took the black t-shirt and cut a 4" wide section off the bottom. I cut one end of the "loop" to make a long strip, but I knew based on the size of my black shirt vs. the skirt it wasn't going to be quite long enough. So, I cut another 4" wide section and sewed them together. Using a gathering stitch, I ran a stitch down the top, then pulled the top thread to gather. It's hard to see, but this is the ruffle....

Ok, then I sewed the ruffle onto the bottom of the skirt (this picture is upside down, but you get the idea, right?) I sewed it onto the right side of the skirt, since the seam was going to be hidden by the next ruffle.

Ok, I skipped a few steps in the pictures here. Sorry! In between, I cut a 4"  wide strip of the light grey, made a ruffle that went just halfway around the skirt, and sewed it on top of the black ruffle. Then I cut a 4" wide strip of the dark grey, and made a ruffle slightly smaller than the light grey ruffle, and sewed it on top of the light grey. Here's a picture of the dark grey ruffle getting sewn on.

Finally, I cut a last 4" strip of black shirt, made a ruffle that went around the whole thing, and sewed it to the top. However, this time, I sewed it upside down on top of the dark grey ruffle, so that it would fold down over the seams and hide them. does that make sense? See the Ruffles and Roses tutorial: she has much better pictures than I do.

And again, my finished skirt.

And, my ever-present dilema: what shoes do I wear with it? :P

I'm actually really happy how it came out. The ruffle is so fun! That's my first real time doing a ruffle, and I had to make quite a few, so I got a lot of practice. I'm thinking I could do this skirt in a bunch more colors and fabrics, as well....hmmm....we'll see if I have time :)

~Pam


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PS. As a side note, another project I'm working on is making grapefruit essential oil. Condo Blues had a tutorial on how to make Orange Essential Oil, and I thought it would be the perfect solution to my grapefruit problem (namely, what in the world to do with all the grapefruits on my tree. I can't eat THAT many of them!). The first step is to take the grapefruit peels and let them lay out to dry. I did that today. Now just wait a week (gulp! a week?) until they are solid. *sigh* I'll keep you posted on the progress :)