• D.I.Y with Nichelle B.

    Birthday Outfit 2018!!

    Hey Lovess!

    I’ve missed you all! I feel like its been a while since I’ve written a blog post! October was kind of a busy month for me, I have a couple posts to catch up on and I’m starting with my birthday post! All about my cropped sweatshirt and long skirt! This outfit was inspired by @kahlanabarfield. I didn’t think I would remake it for my birthday, but it turned out to be perfect for it! I knew I wanted to wear black but I didn’t have anything particular in mind. When I saw this I said yep I love it and then I made it. LOL

    The fabric is from fabric.com and it is the regular sweatshirt fleece. The ribbed fabric on the sleeves and waistband is from Joanns Fabric. This outfit is super warm and comfy. However, just keep in mind sweatshirt material does not have much stretch at all. So if you want more stretch you may want to consider another heavy/medium weight knit fabric. Which I think will still look great. My skirt had a split in the back so I can walk, the 2 pockets in the front, the ribbed waistband, and thats it! No zippers OR elastic! Can you say EASYY.

    I created this pattern using the same basic A-line dress pattern I always talk about. lol (McCalls 9172)

    I had never made a hoodie before but it was so easy. In the fall & winter I live in sweatshirts so I do want to make more. So like I said I used the A-line dress pattern and just cut it in half. The bottom was my skirt and the top was the base for the hoodie.

    To create the hoodie I just flared the sides on the top out a bit so my sweatshirt could be a little bit bigger. Then I added sleeves and the ribbed cuffs. For the hood I used a random hood from one of my jacket patterns. I know that prob wasn’t the best idea but it worked out. lol I checked like all my patterns with hoods to make sure it was the perfect size. So after I made the hood I attached it to the shirt. Around this part is where I would say double check to make sure your neck hole is big enough because it will shrink a bit once you add the hood. After that I put the drawstring in and I left the hem on the bottom raw so I was done!

    The only thing I wish I would have considered was an eyelet to put where my drawstring comes out on the hood. I didn’t have one so I had to just put a hole in my fabric which doesn’t look bad because everything is all black and you can hardly see it but still in the future I would definitely use an eyelet to give it a clean look. As you can see I loved the hoodie and wore it like all weekend!

    Oh and the little black tulle skirt was an afterthought but I liked it! It was just 7 or 8 layers of tulle cut into a circle skirt with an elastic waistband.

     

    I love Kahlana Barfield’s style and I mean who doesn’t love an Effortless Comfy Slay?!

     

    Thanks for following and supporting ya girl! I truly appreciate YOU! My next post Im going to be sharing the details on the dress I made to wear to my sisters wedding and a post all about my locs!

    Comments Off on Birthday Outfit 2018!!
  • Uncategorized

    Ruffle Skirt D.I.Y

    Hey Loves!! I hope you all are having an amazing week!

    I dont even know where to start with this skirt. lol I just feel like its a whole story.. Ok so lets start with the fabric. It is actually one fabric here is a picture of it before I cut it. I also bought one more fabric which I didn’t take a picture of (sorry) so I could have 7 layers. I bought juust enough fabric so I was glad about that.

    Now onto the inspiration… I’ve had this picture saved in my phone for a while. It took me so long to make it because Im soo indecisive! How was I going to choose 7 different fabrics to go in one skirt??? LOL I know the skirt is like mismatched fabrics but I at least wanted it to be in the same color family. So when I saw this fabric I was like yes perfect all different fabrics in one. It looks like this skirt may have been pleated and not gathered but I knew pleats would take a little more time and fabric so I just went with the gathers. The designer of this skirt is Stella Jean. Now onto the construction.

     

    Now my original plan was to do an invisible zipper in the back. So I  made a basic pencil skirt to go underneath it out of plain black cotton. It had 2 darts in the front and the opening was in the back.

    So I measured (or thought I measured) it out perfectly where the ruffles would end right at the top and I could just attach the waistband and be done. However things didnt go as planned and when I was done attaching all the ruffles I had alot of skirt left at the top. I needed that skirt portion that was at the top because thats where the darts were and thats what gave the skirt some shape. The base skirt fit like a glove by the way. So I ended up having to cut alot of the top of the skirt off and at that point the skirt was a little too big. In order for me to really really fix it I would have had to take apart all the ruffles and start over attaching them from the top and I just didnt want to do that. So I ended up cutting some off of the top, taking it in a little at bottom, and just doing an elastic waist.

    Soo if you make this skirt and want to do a zipper instead of elastic, start with a basic skirt as the base. Measure and mark where you want the ruffles to go and start attaching ruffles from the top not the bottom That way if there is skirt leftover it will be at the bottom and you can just hem it.

    After I was done with this skirt I was so mad I just stuffed it in the back of my closet. I had to let my frustrations wear off before I could look at this again! lol

    I paired this skirt with a DIY shirt I made. I felt it was already alot of prints going on so why not add more!