You know how sometimes there’s a certain phrase or tv show or new app that you’ve never heard of before, and then all of the sudden 5 people tell you about it in one day? Well, I had been navigating my life and circle-skirt-making-mania very pleasantly, until one day I heard about the Cricut. Suddenly, without warning, came the deluge of readers and followers asking me if I had one and the hours upon hours of hand cutting I would save. And with a few simple clicks, I fell down the rabbit hole…
If you’ve never heard of it before (like me, 3 months ago), the Cricut is essentially a crafters best friend. A huge hit in the scrapbooking and crafting community, it’s essentially an automated cutting machine. It apparently handles all kinds of material, from card stock and vinyl to fabric and even wood and metal. Suddenly, dreams of appliqué cutting itself while I worked during the day, ready and waiting to be sewn to the next Circle Skirt of Dreams started to dance in front of my eyes. Yeah, it had me at the word “automated.”
I very rarely go into this kind of thing lightly and I needed to do some homework. In all of my researching, I fell into many (many) YouTube reviews and tutorials. As I’m not really a crafter or scrapbooker, I knew this kind of machine would only work for me if it could allow me to design custom shapes (at custom sizes) and cut felt for my appliqué skirts. Although this isn’t true for all models, based on reviews and info on the Cricut website, the Maker and its magical little rotary blade attachment turned out to be optimal for cutting fabric and felt.
It’s definitely an investment instrument – the Maker retails for $369-$399, plus the cost of some additional tools. This isn’t the kind of machine you buy on a whim and I hemmed and hawed for a good long while. I wanted to be sure this would be something I would get a lot of use out of and wasn’t just blinded by New Gadget Lust. So, when our tax return came in and Mr. Dressed and I both decided to rewards ourselves with some Fun Money, it felt like it was time to take the plunge….
At last, my Cricut and all of its accessories arrived. I have to say, she was glorious. Shiny and pink, with a lot of thought and care put into the packaging. My machine connected to my laptop via Bluetooth, so the setup took all of 10 minutes. They even included a “first project” pack in with the machine, so I could test out the process of how it all works.
Although you can go a little crazy with all of the possible extra accessories to buy, the ones I found to be really critical (especially for my felt projects) were:
- Extra 12 x 12″ and 12 x 24″ FabricGrip mats
- Extra rotary blade
- Cricut Basic tools set – I’ve found the scraper and the spatula to be what I reach for most
- Brayer (though you can use a pie dough roller too!)
- I also use my rotary cutter a ton to cut the felt to the size of the mat
I also started to mess around with Design Space – which is the software that comes with the machine to set up your shapes and prep everything for cutting. After a few stops and starts and YouTube videos to work out a few tricks (I highly recommend the JenniferMaker.com blog, which has been my go to for getting started with Cricut), I was ready to get rolling and see what this magic machine could do with felt…
The Inspiration
After a week or so of playing around with the machine and doing some of my own test projects, I decided to finally just let her stretch her wings. I had a project on my sewing list for ages: a Merry Go Round skirt – Butterick #4351. Although technically a Christmas tree skirt (not a human skirt), the minute I saw it I knew it could easily be turned into something wearable with a few minor adjustments and a little bit of pattern drafting.
There were a few reasons this project would be ideal for the maiden voyage of my Cricut:
- The skirt had 15 animals trotting around the carousel, each made up of multiple pieces that would all (normally) need to be cut by hand and then pieced together. This would ordinarily be really labor intensive. I’d been putting this skirt off for ages, because there were so many darn pieces to cut out, with a lot of small details.
- Most of the animals were in duplicate (especially the horses), with the various elements and details needing to be cut in multiple colors. Cricut is ideal for this – since most of the work involved is setting up an image to be cut, cutting duplicates takes seconds once you have the file.
- I am lucky enough to own a true vintage carousel-themed skirt – so if I royally messed this one up, all was not lost.
So, project set, I started getting my materials together. The pattern called for a range of animals, from horses, to lions, tigers, and camels (oh my!), galloping up and down around the hem, which I knew I would make out of felt. There was also the option of creating matching Christmas tree ornaments, but I figured I’d start with a skirt and see if I wanted to match my tree come December 25th….
This would not be the first time I looked at a Christmas tree skirt and thought to myself, “I would totally wear that…” I can say with a certain degree of confidence it won’t be the last….
The Design
Thankfully, the pattern broke down each animal into its multiple elements. Because I was going to give most of the heavy lifting to my Cricut Maker, I just needed to get all of the pattern pieces scanned and set up to be imported into Design Space. I snapped each group of appliqué pieces with my iPhone, took some rough measurements of each, and got ready to set them up for printing.
For this part of the process, I will say, Design Space is less a piece of software where you actually design shapes and more where you set up shapes for cutting. So, to prep, I imported my images into Photoshop to create the files I could print. Although it took a few minutes per applique, I traced each pattern piece and exported it as an .png file, which can then be imported into Design Space for the machine to cut. This was only mildly labor intensive – once I got the hang of it, I had all of my files ready to go in a few hours.
Before we could get a’ cutting’, the critical next step was picking all of the materials. I can never stress the importance of this part enough – when you are making applique circle skirts that have a TON of elements, it’s really important that all of those elements look like they belong together. It can be tempting to use every color under the sun, but you want things to look cohesive and not chaotic.
The key here would be sticking to a color scheme. I decided to go with an old standby – Kona Cotton – for the base, which is ideal in the southern heat (even in autumn). I have amassed quite the stash of blue cottons, so I went through each one until I landed on Sea Glass – a perfect icy blue that would allow my elements to pop – lined in Aqua.
The animals themselves would have a specific color story – going through my swatches from BBD Supplies, I decided I wanted a mix of pink, linen, bright red, and midnight dance for the horses, and champagne, teddy bear brown, and hallow’s even for the lion, camel, giraffe, and tiger, all with pops of gold glitter for details.
Another feature I wanted was a “Big Top” type design around the waist – essentially a circle of “petals” in alternating colors. Although the original pattern had this detail in pastel shades, I decided I wanted a bit more pop. So, I opted to created this out of linen and bright red felt from BBD Supplies to mimic the canopy that the animals go round and round underneath.
I also ordered a range of gold details – beads, trim, and thread – to add the extra magic of bridles and saddles and give the final design a bit of sparkle (yeah, we’ve met…).
To recreate this Carousel skirt, you will need:
The Construction
With the digital side of things prepped and my materials ready to go, I turned my attention to creating the base for the animals to prance upon. This would be my standard circle skirt, with some extra detail around the waist for the center of the carousel and some matching trim along the hem.
It’s been awhile since I talked through making a circle skirt in detail, so I figured I would give a refresher for those who were a bit new to it. First, fold your fabric in half along the length of the yardage, matching your selvage at the top and the bottom. Because I’m so tall, this essentially will take up two full yards of fabric (ie, 36″ from fold to edge); but you can adjust depending on your height. Once the fabric is folded, take care to smooth it down so it’s laying flat. I also like to pin the edges so things don’t slip around.
To make a circle skirt, it’s easiest to think of it as one little circle at the center (where your waist is) cut out of one larger circle (which is your hem). So, from overhead view, your skirt will look like this:
For the waist, you will want to figure out your “radius” measurement, depending on the circumference of your waist. This is where we bring in some geometry, and use the handy equation: circumference = 2*pi*radius.
So, imagining the circumference of the circle is your ideal waist measurement (for me, it’s 28″), you just need to plug in that value and divide by 2*pi. Using my measurements as an example, 28*2*pi = 4.5″. So, when I measure out the radius on my fabric, I will measure 4.5″ from the corner of my folded fabric in an arc, until I have a quarter circle drawn out.
Then, you will do a very similar thing to measure your hem. You’ll still be using the circumference = 2*pi*radius equation, but we will now be measuring the outer circle. In this case, we know the radius we want (which is going to be based on your ideal waist to hem measurement).
The only tricky part of this, is that you need to consider your waist to hem plus the radius of the waist – remember, this is a large circle that also includes the small inner circle.
My ideal waist to hem when cutting is usually 29″ – this is because I prefer my skirts to be 28-28.5″ long, and making the skirt to 29″ allows me to hem it to my perfect length. So, we already know the radius needed for my waist (above = 4.5″). So, 4.5″ + 29″ = 33.5″. So, from the corner of the fold, I will then measure 33.5″ in an arc, making a second, larger quarter circle.
Then, you just cut out the waist and hem and unfold – leaving you with a perfect half circle. I repeat this process twice, which will give you two halves (or a full circle). Depending on your preference, you can leave it as two halves and have either (a) a side zip or (b) a front seam. Since I HATE both, I will usually cut one of the half circles into two quarters, which I will sew up at the side seams, leaving the opening at the back. This allows me to have a back zip and a smooth half circle at the front.
If you still have questions – feel free to check out this post for a more detailed run through of making a circle skirt, or ask away in the comment below.
Once the base was ready and waiting, I turned my attention to the top of the carousel. This part of this project required still more math and a bit of pattern drafting – I wanted to emulate the canopy that spins over the carousel, in contrasting shades of red and cream. I needed 16 panels total; so, given a full circle is 360 degrees, this means I needed 16 petals of 22.5 degrees each (360/16 – 22.5).
I took a piece of craft paper and from the corner measured 4.5″ (the waist radius of my circle skirt). Using a compass, I drew a quarter circle on my paper.
Next, I marked 22.5 degrees of the quarter circle with a protractor (thanks protractor from high school!). I drew a straight line at 22.5 degrees, 8″ from the arc at 4.5″. I then drew a second arc at 8″, completing the petal effect.
Then, I had to add 5/8″ seam allowance at each edge, so that I could sew the pieces together (alternating red and white), with the end result being a circle of petals. I first traced my petal shape, and added the 5/8′ to both sides, completing my pattern.
With my pattern set, I did a quick test on cotton to be sure everything worked out as I had envisioned – it’s always good to test out these things, just to confirm you didn’t make an error or that the proportions didn’t look off. I was pretty happy with it, so off to the felt!
Happy to see that math works (yay!), I quickly cut out 8 petals in bright red and 8 in linen. I zipped them together quickly, pressing each seam flat. In no time at all, I had my scalloped canopy coming like a sunburst from the waist of my skirt.
The next element I wanted to get just right was the poles the animals would essentially “ride” up and down on. I planned to place the critters on them at different heights, so it would look like everything was in motion when worn.
Although there were a lot of ribbon options, I really wanted a barber shop pole effect. With a bit of thinking, I decided to make my own out of medium sized rick rack (0.5″) in red, white, and gold.
Alternating between the three different color combinations, I spent a long afternoon carefully twisting my rick rack together. The standard rick rack was a lot easier to work with – the gold metallic version definitely was more like trying to twist aluminum foil. But, I persisted and it turned out darn near exact to what I picked in my head. And when does that ever happen?
On the skirt, I dotted the spokes coming from the center petal with my disappearing ink pen, and pined my poles along them. I left them longer than they needed to be at this stage, knowing I needed to account for a bit of wiggle room during sewing.
I stepped back to look at the entire effect and, after making a few minor adjustments, took to the sewing machine!
For this part, I just recommend that you take your time – the metallic thread in particular was not a friend to the feed dogs on my machine, and it took a bit of coaxing. But, it wasn’t long before the poles were all secure and I trimmed them to length.
As a final detail for my poles, I decided to have a gold glitter base for each one, just to ground them to the bottom of the carousel. I used my Cricut and cut out 8 x 1.5″ circles out of the gold glitter felt, and snipped each in half.
Once I had a stack of half circles, using my fabric glue, I attached each half circle to the bottom of my poles. In addition to adding a bit of extra sparkle, the half circles also covered up any messy rick rack edges, so it was a win win.
Now, all that was missing was the animals for the carousel (aka, the Best Part). I had already taken the time to set up my files, so now I just had to make some color choices and let my Cricut Maker flex her muscles. I carefully planned out each element and each critter – many of which would need multiples in different colors.
For this, I used the pink fabric mat in 12 x 12″ or 12 x 24″ , and cut out my felt to size depending on the number of elements needed to be cut from each one. Because I had so many pieces to cut, I found the 12 x 24″ was perfect for getting them all done in one go. I cut my felt to shape, and then secured them to the mat. My brayer hadn’t arrived yet, so I used a rolling pin (which worked perfectly!).
The Cricut was super easy to use – I set up a Project for each color, and quickly imported in the elements that I needed to cut from that color felt. You can actually have everything in one project, and Design Space will print each one at a time. But, I only learned this after I had already sent up multiple projects – and the end result would be the same. Because I am obscenely organized, I had it all set up in a spreadsheet, so I was able to get organized relatively quickly.
I chose felt for my material (with default weight) and my rotary blade. I hit go and my carousel creatures started to emerge before my eyes.
Once the cuts are done, you eject the mat from the Cricut and remove the excess. Then, I just used my handy scraper from my basic tools to carefully peel them off the mat. It’s took all of 10 minutes to cut out all of my pink pieces – by hand this would have taken at least an hour or two.
I lather, rinsed, and repeated for all of my colors, before I very quickly had the building blocks for a menagerie on my hands. The only slightly tricky step came with the thicker glitter felt, which just needed a bit more strength instead of the default setting, But, even that went pretty smoothly, and I was so excited to see all of the pieces spread before me like a weird zoological jigsaw puzzle.
I especially liked that Cricut did all of the heavy lifting for me while I was in Zoom meetings….
With all of my pieces at hand, I needed to play Dr. Frankenstein and start to piece all of the animals together. I started with horse’s legs. Although the pattern called for the animal bodies to essentially be one piece, with the divisions drawn on with a sharpie, I’ve learned from past projects that simply using multiple pieces will give it a dimensionality you just can’t get any other way.
For this step, I turned once again to my fabric glue. With the legs matched to body by color, I added a thin line of glue on the part of the leg that was behind the front body. Then, press and repeat. Although the glue dries quickly, to be extra safe I always like to let it dry overnight with a coaster on top to be sure it sets.
Because it would be unfair if only the horses were allowed to have legs, I also generously gave them to the other critters who might want to gallop around the carousel now and then.
After the first round of glue was dry, I turned my attention to giving horses manes and tails. In addition to having both prancing and standing horses, these would have a few different color combinations. I laid it all out beforehand to be sure it was organized, and set to work glueing and pressing and glueing and pressing…
There were a few animals that needed a bit of extra pizazz – lions needed manes, camels needed their fur, and those giraffe spots weren’t going to glue themselves. I set to work playing hair dresser to my other critters.
Once again working with my fabric glue, I quickly set the manes and fur of all of the animals that needed them, leaving them overnight to dry. Expert tip – it helps to have a lot of coasted on hand when trying to keep a bit of pressure on them.
Next up came constructing the saddles. This is where I consulted my spreadsheet again – there were oh so many different color combinations that I wanted to be sure I had everything straight. Working on saddle at a time, I applied my fabric glue to the back of the saddle, and pressed it carefully onto the saddle blanket. Aaaaaaand repeat.
I have always loved special elements – in particular, the giraffe spots and the tiger stripes would be quite fiddly, but an amazing detail to have. For the giraffe, I turned once again to Cricut. I quickly drew around the “spots” in Photoshop and created a single .svg file. Cricut scoffed at my attempt at a challenge, and cut them out with ease.
Because they were all cut to fit the giraffe body perfectly, I worked from the cut squares to the giraffe quickly, using the outline as a template. I put a small dab of glue on the back of each one, and pressed it into place. I left a space for the saddle (which was to come later) free of spots.
he tiger was a little trickier – I tried my same hack by drawing the stripes and trying to get the Cricut to cut them. It did it’s very best, but the stripes were small and curved, and I was trying to cut them out of heavy black glitter felt. So, finally finding a hurdle that Cricut couldn’t overcome, I gave her a break and hand cut my stripes, gluing each in place.
For this step, I found it easiest to let the stripes hang over the edge of the tiger while you glue. Once it tries, you can trim these perfectly to the body, giving you a much cleaner edge.
Once all of the stripes were cut out, I glued them one at a time to my tiger, taking care to make sure no glue was spilling out from the edges. Then, I set him aside to dry…
Because no one shall be denied the never ending carousel music that will play from now until eternity every time I wore this skirt, all of my critters needed ears! These would be made from either a rounded triangle shape for the horses and giraffe, or a circle for the other animals.
For the horses and giraffe, I dotted a small line of glue along the bottom of the triangle, and folded in in half.
As a finishing touch for the giraffe, I snipped his hair every half inch and attached a jaunty horn to the top of his head. He looked like he was ready to party….
For the other animals, I made a small snip at the bottom of the circle. Then, after beading a small dot of glue to one side fo the snip, I folded over the edge and pressed it onto the glue. I let them all dry overnight.
An important part of this process is always checking your progress and seeing how things are looking as you go. At this stage, I laid all of the animals out as I planned them to be just to make sure it was looking the way I wanted. Thankfully, it was. So, I continued on….
Then I needed to attach my saddles to the animals themselves – this was simply a matter of glueing them on. For the giraffe, lions, and tiger, the saddle was a triangle shape. I maneuvered around some of the extra details and pressed them in place.
The horses had a scalloped blanket underneath their saddle. Once again, double checking to be sure my color combos were how I wanted them, I quickly worked one saddle at a time, adding glue and pressing in place.
As you’ve probably noticed, the hard part of this design was the sheer number of elements that went into it, as well as the number of times you have to wait for glue to dry.
At this stage, I decided it was time to attach the carousel canopy to the base circle skirt. One of the downsides with felt is that it will pill if it’s handled too much, so I usually like to wait a bit later in the process before sewing felt elements. But, the hour was nigh.
I started by basting the canopy at the waist – Because of the way the math worked out, I didn’t have room for an even number of red and white pieces. So, the one at the back would be half of each. Taking care to ensure the back pieces were hanging over the right amount, I stitched it in place.
For the rest of the canopy, I would topstitch down the straight edges and along the curves lower edge. For each piece, I topstitched along both edges of the seam – matching thread color to the felt color. This meant I had to switch my thread a LOT, but it gives a much cleaner finish.
Keeping my needle in the down position, I rotated the skirt and stitched along the lower curve of each, before straight stitching up again along the vertical seam.
With the canopy in place, I did another check and laid out all of my carousel animals to ensure that the balance of color and texture looked all right now that everyone had their saddle. Although the LAST thing you want is to have to redo anything, it’s far easier to make changes before all of the pieces are sewn down…
If you’ve ever been to a carousel, you will probably agree that the best part is always the details: the golden gilded bridles, the sparkly stones along the saddles. The time had finally come to add some bling!
I had opted from the start to stick primarily with gold details – some shiny, some matte – which would keep it all cohesive. I had ordered some gold metallic trim from Joann’s, which would add the perfect amount of shimmer.
Each of my carousel critters would have a bridle that would extend from a strap across the nose and extend to the saddle. Starting first with the horses, I cut a series of strips of my metallic trim. Then, I dotted a line of fabric glue across the nose, carefully pressing the trim to the glue, leaving a bit of excess hanging over the edge.
I dotted a second bead of glue on the saddle, pressing the other edge of the trim in place. Again, I left a bit hanging over, which I planned to trim once the glue was dry. I repeated this for each of my horses, and then used my coasters to keep the pressure on while the glue dried.
The next day, once the glue was dry, I snipped off the overhanging edges of the trim. If there was any part of the trim that seemed loose, I secured it with a bit more glue.
I repeated the process for the giraffe, camels, lions, and tigers, securing the bridles and trimming them to a clean finish. As with the horses, I placed my coasters over the glued portions to help with the drying process (needless to say, when Mr. Dressed can’t find a coaster to put his glass down on, he knows now to head straight to my sewing table….)
Because these projects are all about attention to detail, I also spent a bit of time cutting out mini teardrop shapes and glueing on nostrils to each animal. Hey, why go through all of this trouble just to be anatomically inaccurate right? Also, I admit I might have been getting a bit glue happy…..
Although I had a few details still to come, at this stage it was time to sew my menagerie onto the carousel. I laid the skirt flat and pinned each of my animals in place. Some were up high omg the poles, and some low. The idea here was to get the effect of a moving carousel, with the animals slowly moving up and down as we merrily ride around…
I hunkered down for a verrrrry long weekend of appliqué. Working one animal at a time, matching my thread, I made a series of tiny, right back stitches around the outer edge of each.
Once the animals were stitched in place, I moved on to adding the final bit of bling – which was going to be to add some sequins and beading to the horse blankets and bridles. I had an assortment of 6mm faceted sequins and plenty of beads in my sewing room, so I hunkered down and got to work.
For each animal, I started by adding a single sequin to the bridle. If you haven’t done hand-sequins before, you bring your needle up through the center of the sequin. Then, add a bead to your needle, and bring it down again through the center of the sequins, just to the side of your “up” thread. The bead will hold the sequin in place.
I worked quickly through this step, dotting some sparkle on each of my horses.
Then, for the horses, each would get 5 sequins in a complimentary color around their horse blanket. I did the same as above, quickly adding sequins one at a time, securing them with a bead.
For the other animals, their blanket would get one sequins in each corner of the blanket. Using the same method as above, I quickly stitched these details on, amazed at how a little bit of glitz can really add the perfect finishing touch.
Next up came the eyes. For these, I used some silver beads I had in my stash (leftover from my Winter Wonderland skirt). Using my water soluble pen, I dotted on where I wanted the eyes to be. And then simply brought the needle up, added the bead, and brought it down again. I repeated this twice to get the bead really secure.
I repeated this for the horses, until all of my critters could see.
Another adorable detail I wanted to add was whiskers for the cats! For this, I decided to use my black metallic thread. To have a nice thick line, I threaded two strands through the needle, and the doubled it over, giving me four strands total.
For each cat, I stitched 3 straight lines from the nose back behind the bridle. I did the same for my lions, completing the stately pair.
I could hardly believe it when I finished all of the details on the animals – but I was suddenly rounding the bend to the final stages of the skirt! One feature I really wanted to add was a scalloped edge around the hem. I had done a similar detail for my Water Lily Skirt, and thought the scalloped edge would perfectly mimic the scalloped carousel canopy.
For this, I got a series of scalloped felt strips in linen from Wool Hearts. I stitched them together, matching the scallops, until I had one continuous strip and pressed the seams flat.
To stitch it on without a seam showing, I pinned the skirt and scallop trim with right sides together and scallop edge facing upwards towards the waist. I stitched the trim to the top of my skirt hem at 1/2″ from the edge, working my way around the entire circumference.
Once it was stitched down, I clipped the seam allowance of each felt strip so that it wouldn’t peak through at each join and ruin the illusion that it was one long scalloped piece.
With the main details on the skirt done, I could turn my attention to the waistband, the zipper and attaching the lining! My first point of attack was the zipper. I wanted to take my time here, particularly as the felt was so thick and could cause some issues. But, working slowly, it miraculously went in without too much fuss.
Next up: waistband. I cut one 3″ x 32″ rectangle out of the red felt, and a matching one out of the sea glass cotton. Because felt is a fabric made from pressed fibers, it’s even more important to interface the felt piece, as it’s going to be under strain at the waist (what can I say? Your gal likes it cinched).
I stitched the waistband to the lining at the top edge, and pressed the seam flat. Then, I attached the waistband to the skirt, pressing the waist seam upwards. I folded the lining of the waistband down and pinned it in place, securing it with a quick slipstitch.
Then, I pressed under the hem of the lining of the skirt about 5/8″, right to where the edge of the scallop trim was. After settling in to the Great British Baking Show (latest binging obsession), I finished the hem with a slip stitch.
Sidebar about GBBS: those Brits are just so darned nice to one another. They’re lovely and supportive when someone wins, and they bake their butts off for the Title of Star Baker and the grand prize of…bumbumbum…an etched cake stand! It’s the best.
I can’t help but imagine if they brought this show to the States. The bakers would be competitive and catty, the producers would encourage them to steal each other’s ingredients to boost ratings, and the prize would have to be at least a million bucks to create dramatic tension.
Sigh. ‘Merica…
Once teh hem was in place, I spent the final few minutes adding on the waist clasps and pressing in my personal sewing label. and suddenly, there she was. Twirling to her own music in my sewing room.
I‘ve made a lot of whimsical pieces in my day (especially this year – yeesh!), but this one just might win in the whimsey department. She seems to twinkle with joy, harking back to a time in my childhood where all that seemed to matter was getting to sit astride the sparkliest horse and catch the golden ring as you whirled merrily past….
The Debut
Because of the pandemic, we’ve taken to photoshoots around the neighborhood. Well, my neighbors definitely know something’s up. We’re at that point where they haven’t quite worked up the courage to ask us…but cars definitely slow when they catch a glimpse of me twirling like a loon in the garden. At this point, they will most certainly have to get used to it. Our street is my only runway, and I am most definitely working it…
And the seasons they go
’round and ’round
And the painted ponies
go up and down…
We’re captive on the carousel of time,
we can’t return
we can only look behind….
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.
Joni Mitchell
Being that this was my first voyage with my Cricut, I definitely embarked on a fairly ambitious project. But, if I’m going to test a new toy, I might as well push it to the limits. Needless to say, this little machine and I are going to have a long, happy sewing life together.
I still have a few bits to learn here and there – I’ve joined some wonderful Facebook groups who are full of tips and tricks. I guess the only thing Cricut and I have left to do is decide what our next project should be…
Happy sewing!
xoxo
Construction Details:
Circle Skirt: Self-drafted
Skirt fabric & Lining: Robert Kaufman Sea Glass & Aqua Kona Cotton
Appliqué cut on my Cricut Maker!
Appliqué: Felt from BBD Supplies
Additional notions (sequins, beads, zipper, thread): JoAnn’s
Outfit Details:
Top: Modern Millie’s
Skirt: Made by me!
Necklace: gift, Modcloth (similar)
Handbag: gift (similar)
Shoes: Betsey Johnson (similar)
.
instagram // twitter // facebook // pinterest
.
Any items marked with a “c/o” (courtesy of) a retailer mean I was provided with an item for free in exchange for a review and/or feature on my blog. I always provide my honest opinion of any item I’m reviewing, regardless of whether it was sent to me as a courtesy item or if I purchased it myself. In addition, this post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click and/or make a purchase through certain links or ads on this site, I may make a commission from that click and/or purchase at no cost to you, which helps with the day-to-day running costs of my blog.