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Cost
$ $ $ $ $
Difficulty
• • • •
Time
2h00

Create a cute mermaid-inspired skirt. No experience required!
i was only able to sew on the front side of my skirt, due to a loss of thread, although I wanted for the "scales" to go all around the skirt.
You can apply this technique to any piece of clothing and with any fabric! My friend wants me to make her a tank top with triangle "tulle" scales all over the front, so be creative with the shapes as well!

Posted by KaitKim Published See KaitKim's 7 projects »
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  • How to make a mini skirt. Fish Scale Skirt - Step 1
    Step 1

    Cut off the legs of your jeans and put the rest away (save the top part for a pair of cute cut offs!)
    Turn the legs inside out.

  • How to make a mini skirt. Fish Scale Skirt - Step 2
    Step 2

    Cut each of the legs open along one of the side seams.
    Put the jeans legs to the side.

  • Step 3

    Pull out your cardboard and sketch out a circle with your marking tool to the size you want. Cut the circle out with an Xacto knife or a pair of scissors.
    This will be your "scale" template.

  • How to make a mini skirt. Fish Scale Skirt - Step 4
    Step 4

    Take your circle and place it on your jeans. Trace the circle onto the WRONG side of the jeans until there is no space left.
    Repeat for all the jean legs.

  • How to make a mini skirt. Fish Scale Skirt - Step 5
    Step 5

    You should have a ton of little jean circles (I had a pair of size 12 girls jeans from 6th grade and had about 100 circles).

  • How to make a mini skirt. Fish Scale Skirt - Step 6
    Step 6

    Pin the circles onto your skirt in order to get an idea of how you want the scales to look when you wear the skirt. I had all of my scales overlapping the other from each circle's right side.

  • Step 7

    Sew each of the circles on one at a time at the top, with small but strong stitches. Make sure that each circle's stitch is covered by the circle above it.

  • Step 8

    If you want to, for the top of the skirt, you can cut some of your circles in half and sew them onto the waistband so as the cover up the top circles' stitches.

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Comments

Knotsu
Knotsu · 11 projects
Very nice!
Reply
Lundora
Lundora · Kokkola, FI · 8 projects
Great project! Thank you for sharing. Happy
Reply
Bryony
Bryony · Rochdale, England, GB · 2 projects
I love it, nice one! x
Reply
KaitKim
KaitKim · 7 projects
The scales do tend to fold on themselves if the denim isn't really thick, but an iron should help to flatten them out. They shouldn't fall off if you reinforce the stitches enough.
Reply
Lolly.Bot
Lolly.Bot · Enfield, England, GB
Oh wow that is actually really cute!!!
Reply
Kirky
Kirky · Sparta, Tennessee, US · 16 projects
How well do the scales wash? I've tried this on a pair of jeans before and the scales ended up warping and eventually fell off.
Reply
emmilou w.
emmilou w. · Wallasey, England, GB · 12 projects
this is a very cool idea...thanks for showing us ^_^
Reply
quirky been v.
quirky been v. · U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado, US · 8 projects
nice... if you wanted to have this for a mermaid costume, you could just have a longer skirt and use metallic scale print fabric... very awesome.... i would like to see a shirt with that...
Reply
RADGina
RADGina · 2 projects
its a litle ugly but im loving it lmao its very creative! ~it screams dress me up with shiny leggings instead of just plain black dontcha think? ;)
Reply
Elizabeth
Elizabeth · La Celle-sous-Gouzon, Limousin, FR · 46 projects
that's great!!
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