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A denim skirt for doing cartwheels! - more clothes upcycling


This year my daughter is in the school musical production, Superkids.  I am helping out with the costumes.

My daughter has been cast as one of the school bullies, and they have to wear denim shorts or skirts. Since she has to do cartwheels and other gymnastics on stage, she asked me to make her a denim skirt that she could do cartwheels in!

I don't sew a lot of clothes, and when I do I like to keep it simple.  
I saw this as a great way to use up some more of my denim scraps too, so asked my daughter if a patchwork skirt would be ok.


She was happy with that, so I set to work with my denim scraps cutting strips the right length (measured from the length of one of her other skirts).

I also got a piece of wide elastic (from my Wonder Woman costume I made last year) and cut that down to her waist size - making a simple waistband.

I then stitched the denim strips together (they were all just roughly cut, not measured) and then joined them in a loop and simply stitched them to the waistband of the skirt.


Since the denim is rather thick fabric, I didn't want to just hem the bottom of the skirt.  We decided on snipping around the base and will 'ruffle' the fabric to create a raggy edged look.


The skirt is nice and simple and soft enough for my daughter to do her gymnastics on stage in.
She tested it out with the boots she will wear and was very happy with it!



The teacher directing the musical also asked me to make some denim accessories for the school bullies, so I made a few denim cuffs and collars with a bit of bling attached!  Jeans waistbands for the cuffs, and seams for the collars!




I had a couple of other costumes to create for the school musical. One for Captain Vegemite. This one was easy as all I had to make was a cape, then add the superhero logo to that and the t-shirt.



The other costume was for "Wholemeal Kid". For this one I found a brown skirt and t-shirt in the charity shop at a grand total of $2!  I adjusted these to a small kid's size, and added a logo, cape and a little bit of pink too!

Finally there were a few capes to decorate and make more 'super'. So my daughter and I spray painted some silver stars on them - again nice and simple.





I had lots of fun making these costumes, some fun school holiday sewing and creating. I can't wait to see them all up on stage when the musical opens in a few weeks time.



8 comments:

  1. awesome skirt and jewelry! love seeing stuff made from denims and you have some other great upcycles! thanks for sharing :)

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  2. Jill! That skirt is so pretty, and so are the tumbles from your tumbler. ruffling the bottom really made it original. All the other bits and costumes rock as well! Hope the performance is stellar!

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    1. Thanks MIch! I had a lot of fun with these costumes!!

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  3. Great job on the skirt, Jill and a super idea to ruffle the hemline. The teacher asked the right person to make the bullies' accessories. No one else would have a denim stash which included all the offcuts just waiting for some added bling.

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    1. Thanks Pam! I know - I was really happy when the teacher suggested denim accessories!!

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  4. I love this skirt, just perfect. It reminded me of a family party a few months ago, several of the younger girls were sharing gymnastic moves with one another on the dance floor early on - you know that time before the party really gets going! - and one had a fairly tight straight skirt on and boy did she struggle! Constantly having to pull it back down after a cartwheel or two, she would have been much better in something like this!

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    1. Thanks Julia, My daughter loves her skirt and has no problems doing all her gymnastics moves in it for the musical!!

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