Thursday, June 28, 2012

Rainbow Butterfly Skirt Tutorial

Hi y'all! I am Jessica and I blog over at My Inner Need to Create. I am a stay-at-home mother to 3 kids (8, 4 and 3) but once a upon a time I was a web and graphic designer. Though I am not doing this as my career right now, I see this side of my style bleed through into all my crafting. In fact I like to think of all the clothes I make as a canvas waiting for me to make it into a piece of art. I like to do this in many ways but love the look of appliquéing...

Here is a recent appliquéd project: Rainbow Butterfly Skirt.
Applique Rainbow Butterfly Skirt

Applique Rainbow Butterfly Skirt

Applique Rainbow Butterfly Skirt


Applique Rainbow Butterfly Skirt

To start I took a skirt of my daughter's to use as a pattern. I chose a thick gray knit as the fabric for the skirt (it was left over from my Superhero Circle Dress from Week 1 of the Sew Along). I just made a simple A-line skirt with no seem allowance for the top since I planned on using 1.5 inch elastic for the exposed waistband.

After the front and back of the skirt was cut out, I sewed one of the side seems together and laid out the skirt flat. Next I drew out the butterfly design, I used the skirt shape to dictate the cropping on the butterfly.


Take your design and trace it on to Iron-On Fusible Interfacing, make sure that you reverse the image!
Iron the butterfly onto the black fabric.


Next- cut it out.




Peel off the paper from the back of the butterfly, you will need this for a template in a minute.

For my butterfly I wanted a rainbow, but at this step you could use a cute print or a solid color. I choose my colors and sewed them together in 1.5 inch strips.

After the strips are sewed together and ironed flat, use the paper backing off of the Iron-On Fusible Interfacing as a template and cut out the wings.


Iron the black part of the butterfly onto the colors. Take another piece of interfacing and iron it onto the back of the entire butterfly. Then iron that piece onto the skirt.



Next you have to zigzag around all the black raw edges. I sewed with black thread...

but with a gray bobbin thread so that I didn't have to line the skirt.



I sewed the skirt together at the other side then I attached the 1.5 inch black elastic as the waistband.

Applique Rainbow Butterfly Skirt


The skirt turned out very eye-catching with the bold, big butterfly but it is a really simple jersey knit skirt with very limited sewing skill needed (the zigzagging around the pieces of the appliqué takes the most practice.) 

Applique Rainbow Butterfly Skirt

Applique Rainbow Butterfly Skirt

My daughter loves the skirt and wears it everytime she finds it in her drawer clean.

Applique Rainbow Butterfly Skirt

I took these photos with her wearing a black leotard as her top but a 3 year old wearing a leotard all day is really not ideal for going to the bathroom. So I refashioned a slimming black tank top from an old (very old!) tube top if you hop over to my blog you can check out the tutorial!

Refashioned Black Tank Top for a Little Girl

Thanks for inviting me to guest post during this month of Flicker Friends! I am so glad to be able to get in on the fun! I hope everyone is having a great summer!

If you don't feel like drafting your own skirt, the Becky Skirt Pattern from our shop would be a great base for this appliqué. 



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Rainbow butterfly skirt tutorial



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28 comments :

  1. I have been waiting for this! I loved it so much when I first saw it - ingenius! I still love it!

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  2. This is so beautiful - love that it wasn't as hard to do as I imagined!

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  3. Oh my goodness gracious!!! When I first saw this dress I actually thought it was an applique from the Eric Carle fabric! How impressive that it was actually hand made! Great job!!

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  4. she makes it look so easy ~ this skirt turned out perfect !

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  5. This is so clever! I'm pinning it for later!

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  6. WOW. I love this so much. Great job!

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  7. This is beautiful! It reminds me of stained glass!

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  8. This is SO neat! I have to try it asap! Thanks for such great inspiration!

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  9. Wow! How pretty!

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  10. Oh Its so much easier than I thought it would be. Great Work my daughter would love it.

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  11. 100 likes :)
    Will do it for sure..

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  12. Great tutorial and beautiful skirt!

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  13. I love this skirt. I was SHOCKED that you didn't win anything at Skirt Week. :)

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  14. me gusta muchisimo esa falda te felicito por eso

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  15. Simply GORGEOUS! Than you so much for sharing the how-to! *thumbs up* Best regards from Eva Mari in Norway

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  16. Absolutely gorgeous... I have 2 granddaughter who would love this.. Only one problem, grammy can't draw. Is there a template that can be found to do the butterfly. I can create but can not sketch or draw.. just something that missed me completely

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  17. That is amazing. Found you via some blogging link - can't remember. but thrilled I did.

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  18. Lovely! I've shared and now want to make a few skirts for granddaughters and maybe applique a t-shirt for the not-so-littles. Has the pattern for the butterfly been shared anywhere? It would sure be a help. :D

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  19. This is great! Now I need to make one for my daughter...

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  20. beautiful relatively simple, just not so sure of my cutting skills to get neat black outlines

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  21. Absolutely gorgeous. Total #CreativeGoodness. I'm also curious of the template for this butterfly is available anyplace? Certainly is a perfect butterfly and would help to kickstart this project for me vs drawing from scratch.

    QuiltShopGal
    www.quiltshopgal.com

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