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Remember how I told you about my first half marathon not too long ago? Yeah, I had kind of forgotten about it too.
Don’t get me wrong…I have been keeping up with my runs and what not, I just kind of lost track of time. I had looked at all of these gorgeous costume ideas on Pinterest and Etsy and kept telling myself that I had all the time in the world to design and plan my own. And that was true.
Until it wasn’t.
Flash forward to where the fam and I are leaving on a cruise this week (we are doing our run the day after we get off the boat) and I had nothing put together. Worse than that, my hubs and I hadn’t even decided what characters we were going to dress as! Panic time!
Thankfully, making my own running sparkling skirt was ridiculously easy (I am sewing challenged, to say the least), super inexpensive and saved my booty. If you have any upcoming races, or let’s face it, just want to be cute and sparkle, this skirt is for you.
Supplies Needed:
matching thread
straight pens
sewing machine or needle
I found my fabric at Hobby Lobby and purchased 1/3 of a yard. 1/3 yard is going to give you about a 12″ skirt, so you can feel free to add to that if it would make you more comfortable. The length of the fabric made a great fitting skirt for me (I am a size 0 or 2), but you can absolutely add pieces together to create as many panels as you may need or if you want a fuller skirt, definitely add another panel or two to fluff it out.
PS: my fabric was $5.99 a yard, which came out to just under $2 for me and the elastic was $2.99. I had the thread and pins on hand, so without even using my 40% off coupon I was under $5 total for my skirt.
The first thing to do is to measure and prepare your elastic. This will be the waistband, so you will want to remove your clothing to get the fit just right. Hold the elastic around your waist, where you want the skirt to sit, pulling it taut. You don’t want it to be too tight, but you want to make sure that the skirt won’t be falling down around your ankles while you are running. 🙂
Once measured, add another 1-2 inches and cut the remaining elastic off. With a sewing machine (you can hand stitch if you need to, but it will be tedious), overlap the ends of the elastic and sew a box. Make sure to back stitch to lock the stitches in. Just like that, you’ve already got a waistband!
Lay the fabric out, right sides in, on a flat surface and fold it in half hamburger style. (Remember hot dog and hamburger style from school? Short ways is hamburger, long is hot dog.)
Use straight pens to pin the sides together and sew it to make a tube. Again, make sure to backstitch.
You’ve got two options for the seams on the skirt. The first is that you can hem it to give it a cleaner look. The second is that you can leave it unfinished. This fabric doesn’t fray or unravel, so an unfinished seam is totally fine. I went ahead and hemmed mine, but it would be just fine either way and the lazy part of me wishes that I had just saved myself the time.
After making a decision on the hem, it’s time to add the fabric to the waistband. Start by turning the skirt right side out and then laying both pieces on a flat surface and grab some straight pins. The skirt will be much larger than the waistband. Don’t worry, that is what you want. The skirt needs to be loose enough that you can move and run in it, but the waistband needs to stay in place.
Match the seam of the skirt to the seam on the waistband and pin it together (I totally spaced this important step and ended up having to repin), with the fabric about halfway up on the waistband. Do this on the front, back and both sides.
Now go back in and add another pin or two in each section. This will make your life easier when sewing.
Here is the slightly tricky part; sewing the skirt to match the size of the waistband. Sorry, I don’t have any photos of this step since I needed both hands to sew. 🙁 Sewing on the inside of the waistband, hold it taut on both ends the whole time. You absolutely need to keep pressure on both what you are feeding through the machine and what is coming out on the other side. If you do not keep it pulled tight, you will end up with all of the excess fabric in one spot and you might damage your machine while you’re at it. The fabric will end up laying nicely along the elastic while it is tight and then will have a lovely wave to it while you are wearing it.
Keeping the elastic pulled tight the entire time, sew the waistband and skirt together. I did this step twice, just for added security.
As you can see, my seamstress skills are basically zero. Not sure how or why, but my needle kept coming unthreaded and I ended up with this mess.
But you can’t see it unless you are right up on top of me, so I feel pretty good about it. I saved myself a bit of money (plus the time for shipping that I didn’t have!) and ended up with a beautiful sparkling running skirt. I am so excited about it and can’t wait to show you the full last minute costume that I am whipping up! Hint: I am wearing royal blue and I am a Disney Princess book worm. Any guesses?
Kristen, this is a jack pot post for me. one of my friend is participating in a function where she is a cheer leader, she asked me to make a one for her and when i showed this to her, she was so happy that she wanted me to make the same. I am going to make this with the same fabric but in white color (its a color code)this weekend. Thanks so so much for sharing this post. Keep blogging.
That’s so great, Hannah! Hope you and your friend love it!