Oooo la la!

I sewed my garter...months ago and I'm just now getting around to blogging it. Oops!

Future Hubs: Please vacate the premises immediately.





















So Ryan and a bunch of his runner friends are on this running team they call "Omega Falcon" and their colors are royal blue and orange. Since almost all of the Omega Falcon runners will be in attendance at the wedding, I had to the garter in those colors, right? Right. But I have love in my heart for dotted swiss, and the challenge was to mix that girly fabric with the sporty colors. I found some dotted swiss tulle at Hobby Lobby for the low low price of $4 a yard and picked up 1/4 of a yard for almost nothing. The ribbon I also got at Hob Lob when it was half off for like $1.

Ta da! Please ignore how pasty my legs are.


Making this was super unscientific and very much a trial-and-error process. I basically cut material in rectangles and sewed it to a piece of elastic until I got what I wanted. The piece of tulle is much longer that the elastic, and when I sewed the 2 pieces together I stretched the elastic out with 1 hand while sewing, so when I was done sewing the elastic contracted and gave the tulle that nice gather.

It's nothing fancy by any means, but it'll do. I keep seeing other garters on the blogosphere that I want to attempt (like this one), but I think I just need to let this project be. My friend Melissa did mention that she might have me sew her garter, which opens that realm of exploration back up!

Did you ever finish a project and were then tempted to do it all over thanks to too-much-inspiration?

Garter Material

*Ryan, this concerns the garter which I know you'd like to be surprised about, so read no further please*

I was in St. Louis last week when I was laid off from work, and I made it to this amazing fabric store called Jackman's Fabrics. This place is like Mood from Project Runway or something, the selection was incredible.

I posted about a lovely garter I'd like to model mine after here, and I've been on the hunt for dotted swiss tulle. I hadn't been able to come close anywhere, not even online, but I knew I'd be able to find something at Jackman's. They have a really large selection of bridal trim, lace and fabrics, and now I know why lace dresses cost so much-they had some lace there that was $65 a yard! Anyway, they had this lovely sheer fabric that I think will work nicely:






It was $9/yard, and I got a half yard, which is wayyyy too much fabric, but I've never made a garter before or worked with elastic and I wanted to leave myself plenty of room for error.

I am doing the garter in the colors of a running team Ryan is on with some of his running friends. The team is called "Omega Falcon" and their colors are blue and orange. (Don't worry, they all have nicknames that go on their singlets...most of them have ninja names.) I want to incorporate the name Omega Falcon in there somehow, and I was thinking a personalized tag or something, but they are expensive, and you have to order a bunch. I might look into embroidering the name on the ribbon, which sounds really tricky. Or maybe I could get a piece of satin and cut it into a strip, hem it, and embroider on that.

Hopefully I can get on it this weekend, depending on if Ryan comes down or not. I just need to get some ribbon and/or satin, coordinating thread and elastic and I'll be good to go. Now that I have a kick *ss sewing machine, this should (hopefully) be a fun project!

Are you sewing anything for your wedding, or learning new skills?

Garters

The garter toss. Ryan has something "hilarious" planned, but he won't tell me what it is....I'm just going to have to trust that it isn't something horribly embarrassing.


**Studly runner, if you want to be surprised when it comes to the garter, please stop reading now**



I know that lots of people are discontinuing this tradition, but I don't have a problem with it. I'm a runner, I have spent lots of time working on my legs, so I'm not afraid to show those off by any means! Also, Ryan has this running team with some of friends called Omega Falcon and their colors are blue and orange, and since all of those guys will be at the wedding, I thought it'd be fun to do the garter in the theme of Omega Falcon running.

I found this on Etsy and it is so gorgeous.

Source

It's $30, which considering the high quality vintage materials the seller uses, is perfectly reasonable. I'm definitely going to attempt to DIY this though. It's high time I learned how to work with elastic anyway!

I really love the dotted swiss tulle used in that garter, but I'm worried that such a girly, pretty, fabric will look silly with royal blue and orange accents. What do you all think? I'm having a hard time picturing how such a feminine material will look with such sporty, masculine colors.

I'm thinking that this how-to will work nicely, or even this one, I'm just undecided in terms of materials.

So what do you all think? Can I use the frilly delicate material I like with such a sporty theme? What are you doing for your garter, if you're doing one?