Made By Lex

Sheer Skirt Tutorial with Hart’s Fabric Giveaway!

There is nothing I love more this season than sheer fabrics. I think they are so elegant, airy and effortless. (You can see my Sheer Love board on Pinterest for inspiration.) I’ve made quite a few now and wanted to share how to do one with you. I went to harts fabric and this fabric caught my eye immediately. I can’t even pretend here- this is drapery fabric!! But I went over to Harts amazing upholstery side of their store, saw this, and knew it was just what I wanted to make this sheer skirt. Think outside the box!!

So here’s how you make this simple and chic look.

Before you start make sure you have the right kind of needle. It’s SO important when working with these kind of fabrics. Also, may I give another shot out to Fabric Savvy? This is such a great resource for information on how to use different fabrics.

  First, you need to determine how wide you want the skirt. I think this depends on the fabric. When it’s really light and sheer you can handle more gathering because it won’t look bunchy at your waist. But this fabric had a lot of structure and I didn’t want it to add 10 pounds to my waist. So for me, my waist is 26 inches and I used 45 inches of fabric. Also, this fabric is so sheer and will obviously need lining. I like to use separate slips for my skirts. Sometimes I want to wear a short slip and other times I want the full skirt. So I’ll show you how to make a separate slip.

Connect the piece, or pieces, by French seams. (shown how to here.)It’s the best way to connect sheer fabric.

Gather the top of the skirt. I do this by ruffling on my seeing machine. Keep it slightly larger than your waist, so you can pull it over your hips.

To make the waist band, get a piece of fabric the width of your gathered waist .  You will need to attach the lining to this because the elastic sill show through.

Connect the waistband together.

Fold and press the waistband in half, pinning it in place.

Pin it to the gathered top of the skirt. I recommend sewing it gathered side up. You can keep a better eye on your gathers that way so they aren’t getting bunched or shifted in the stitched. I used a zig zag stitch. I’ve found that using a serger makes it way too bulky.

Leave a small opening for some elasitc. Weave it through then close the seam.

To finish the bottom of the skirt you can do it many ways. You can just hem it as is. But for this look I wanted to do a large border. I got a piece the same width and folded it over in half.

After I attached it to the skirt I did a decorative top stitch.

Now the skirt is complete, is time to make the slip. This is almost a no brainer. But let me give  few words of advice. The color of the slip can drastically change the look of a sheer skirt. So play around with different underlayers. I used a nude colored silk and decided to use the back side, the dull side, instead of the shiny front.  I started the same way as I did with the skirt. Connect the piece or pieces together. I made this the same size as the skirt.

You don’t need to gather the waistband, just fold the top over making a small place for elastic.

Insert the elastic and close the seam when finished. Here’s how it will look.

I just finished the bottom with a simple rolled hem.

Now the skirt is complete!

I love the drama of this print paired with a simple tank.It’s such a simple neutral with great detail.
I was also really happy to have added the large hem. I think it makes it extra special. 

You can also wear a shorter slip to show some leg. I love this look and wear it on a lot of my sheer skirts.

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How To Make Leg Warmers or Boot Socks

Wow! I’ve been absent a while! I’ve been really busy up at mydaughters school working on some projects for their school auction, then the girls got sick and I got sick. (the kind of sick where I was in bed all day!) No fun! But here I am, so happy to be back. I’ve got a new tutorial just in time for colder mornings and dimming evenings.

I absolutely love layers. One of my favorite ways to layer are socks under knee high boots. But honestly, I hate tucking my jeans into a giant sock. Doesn’t everyone? It gets bunchy and uncomfortable. So here’s a much easier way to get the look.

Feel free to accessorize however you like.

So cute and stylish and much easier then stuffing your leg and jeans into a tight sock.

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend. I’m working on a GREAT tutorial for next week with a BIG giveaway!!!

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Bondage Inspired Sweater

I had a cozy, lounging sweater that was on it’s last life. It was too oversized and kept falling off. But I couldn’t let go of it.

In comes two sources of inspiration.

One- This sweater I saw on pinterest. I just loved it.

via middlechildcomplex.tumblr.com

Second- this bondage trend I saw in Elle this month.

So here’s what I did with my sweater. I cut the back into a deep v. Then I sewed it wround the opening so it wouldn’t fray.

Then I just added three leather straps to the back.

(ps- do you know this is me? I think a lot of people think the blonde that I have modeling all the time for me is Lex. But it’s actually my sister. She is living close by in San Francisco so she can’t model at my disposal anymore. I have to do it myself a little now. yikes!)

I love the edginess of it.  To do it over, I wouldn’t have cut it so low. But it stretched FAR more than I thought it would, so keep that in mind if you try it.

I love the ease  of oversized sweaters.  They’re so versatile because you can wear them as loungewear or style them up a bit for an “I-don’t-care” kind of look.

Hope you all like this one!

And don’t forget my fall line of scarves is 25% off for a bit longer. 

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Sheer Love

My recent obsession- anything sheer.

I love the lightness and femininity of this look. I especially love it paired with a contrasting heavy knit. Here are some of my favorite looks.

This could very possible become my new fall wardrobe staple.

Inspired tutorials coming this fall.

Twisted Strap Maxi Dress

Before I could post the loungewear tutorials I new I had to get the  maxi dress tutorial up. This time I used a couple videos. I hope they are easy to understand. First off, I apologize for doing the tutorial with black jersey. It’s a little hard to see all the details.

Ok, let’s begin. Before we start, simplify this in your head. You’re making a top. You’re making a skirt. You’re connecting them. That’s all. You can do this.

For the top I cut a triangle piece of fabric out. You want it to extend over your shoulder a couple inches and about an inch past your natrla waist. It will be large. That’s ok. Dont worry about that part yet. I put a pin at the top shoulder part so I don’t get confused with what point goes where.

You will need four of these. After I cut the four I put them up on my form so you could see what we’re going for.

The next step is to connect the top of the dress at the shoulders. Here’s what you’ll have.

Now for the twisted shoulder strap. All you need to do is twist each top at the shoulder strap until you like the way it looks.

(note: I wasn’t happy with the way mine looked. They looked really thin. So what I did was twist an extra piece of fabric around it to bulk it up. Just keep that in mind if you want it thicker.)

Now what we’ll need to do is sew the front, back and side seams. Make sure you take in to account how low you want the front and back to be.I made a video to help explain it easier.

pinning

After sewing them together here’s how I refined the armholes.

armhole

Now that the top is complete, we need to attach it to the skirt. Make a waistband that’s slightly larger than your waist. That way it will still be fitted but you can get it over your head. Then gather the bottom of your top so that it fits the length of the waistband. Sew it together.

Last step! Figure out how long you want your skirt. I make it the width of my waist band plus half. Gather it to the width of your waist band and attach.

Here’s the finished dress. I love the look of ease with this dress. It looks relaxed and flowy and still has great style.

I think the twisted straps add a nice, different detail.

That being said, let me point out it’s flaws- My stripes got all goofy and I ended up not being able to do anything about it since I ran out of fabric.

But that being said, I still love the dress and hope people don’t notice when I wear it

I hope you guys have liked the tutorial and go make your own version!

In other news, I have a new line of leather bound scarves  coming out soon! I have a sample sale going on of my Spring/Summer line. Out of these, I have the army/fushcia, navy stripe/silver, black/brown, grey/aqua and orange/silver left. Since they’re my samples they are over half off and on sale for only $30!

Email me at lex@madebylex.com if you want one.

If you head over to my facebook page  you can see some of my new designs for the Fall/Winter line, too. I’d love to hear what you think.