Our Ribbon Skirt

I finally finished the ribbon skirt I wrote about here.

Following her tutorial my daughter and I began making the loops. We used 8 different ribbons of varing width and colors and had 5 of each one to make it around the hem of the skirt. We didn't take a picture of our trial strip. We measured our trial of the 8 strips, divided it by the circumferance of the skirt to know how many we would need.

We used a fabric fusing glue to hold them together.

Next I added the iron on fusible webbing to my hem tape. Silly me used one that was too small and I had to add a second one to compensate for it.

Before I began assembly I pinned each end of the the hem tape to my ironing board. To assure my loops were even I measured down the 1.25" and secured a dowel. I guess you could say I learn the trick of jiggs from my hubby during our remodel.

With all my loops in place

I added another strip of hem tape so to sandwich the loops.

While my row of loops cooled I worked on some of the embellishments on the pockets. I add two hearts to the back pockets and ric rak to the front pockets....

Once the strip was cool it was time to attach it to the skirt.

It is now ready to be sewn.

Before I began sewing I also added some gems to the rivets on the pockets. This was a bit challenging. First I bought a Bedazzler but there pieces would not fit over the rivets. It was suggested to try the Tulip brand but again, though it appeared this system would work our store didn't have any gems large enough nor the colors I wanted. My solution was to use gems for shoes and secure them with a super glue that can withstand water.

When I began sewing I was having a hard with the loops so I decided to press them flat. This worked great although there was now no volume to the loops. The other problem I had was with my sewing machine. Seems it came home broken. I don't know what or if my son did anything to cause this and it could have happened simply by something hitting it but my reverse button was stuck in reverse. Since it was way after business hours I discovered this I had to sew in reverse. I must say my stitching wasn't that bad, only a few places did it swerve.

I was not happy how flat my loops looked and had to figure out a way to puff them back out.

First I misted the loops to get them wet and with the knife sharpener and my iron on steam I managed to remove the crease in each loop. As I was doing this I did wonder if a curling iron would have worked.

All in all this project took me about 4 hours to make.

The next ones should be easier since I learned so many tricks with this one.