DIY: How to make a cheerleader costume from the show 'Daria'

Okay I was supposed to upload this tutorial much earlier than this but so many pics to upload zzz couldn't be bothered but then I was like eh I'd better do it sooner than later or else I wouldn't ever end up doing it.

I bought 50cm of yellow fabric at Lincraft, it was very thin (it's folded over itself several times so it looks quite opage but in reality fabric was very very thin and see-through) so the first thing I did was:

Get some white fabric of my mums (she has a tonne lying around lol) and fully LINE the fabric so the blue of the skirt wouldn't peek through if I had kept it unlined. You'll see the difference later.

I found some yellow thread (always match your thread to the fabric colour, DON'T FORGET to change the bobbin colour thread too)

This thread matched perfectly. I took two spools in case one ran out during my sewing since I was making two costumes instead of only one (one for me, one for RH)

If you look closely, you can see pins in the fabric. Pin both white and yellow together and sew all the edges. In this case you can see excess white at the bottom, it's because the white material I had wasn't exactly to size of the yellow so i pinned down what I could, sewed down all I could then cut off excess white fabric.



Here you can see the distinct difference between lined and unlined on the blue fabric of the skirt. If you fabric is too thin, this is a very important step.

The inside of the fabric is now lined and the yellow colour is more opaque! Yay!

Now get your blue skirt (I used my old primary school skirts for sports; luckily I had two of them)

Measure the waistband to see how much fabric you need for the waist part

(The skirt is not actually this navy, the photo above was with flash, this had strange lighting)

Cut out the length of the band that you measured and sew around the edges.

Pin down and sew sew sew around the whole rectangle! :)

Repeat for the other skirt. Voila band is now on! Cut off fraying ends and cover edges in clear nail polish to harden up edge and prevent further fraying. Also gives a nice, glossy look and keeps it stiff :) (THIS. TOOK. YEARS)

Time to measure and cut out parts for the rectangles of yellow fabric that go DOWN the skirt making it look pleated

Sew around them like I did with the waistband before, and then cut off  fraying parts and cover in nail polish again. All in all I had to make 14 bands (not including the waist ones) for both skirts, 7 for each.

Space the rectangles on the skirt evenly (I left 5cm of blue fabric between each), pin down and sew

Note the space I left between each one. I know I said I made 7 for each skirt, and there are only 6 rectangles in the picture, it's cos the last rectangle is off screen somewhere haha

I have pinned all of them down and now it's time to sew sew sew!

These are both of the finished skirts! I layered one on the other in this pic in case you guys can't tell it's two different skirts :)

I bought two shirts as bases for the tops of the costumes. I got them in different colours so they would match the colour of the skirts better (the skirts are a little different in colour, one is a bit light, the other is more navy)

Measure around the collar and around the cuffs because yellow fabric is going to go around here

Mark with a pencil and cut

At this point it's very important to change your thread to the colour your shirt is, in this case, blue. Change your bobbin too. If you kept everything yellow, any mishaps you did would show as glaring yellow thread on the outside of the shirt. Besides, using blue means the finished product looks neater, the stitches are invisible etc

Notice the thread change?

Anyway, when I cut out my yellow rectangles  I cut out DOUBLE the width of what I actually needed because I was going to FOLD IN HALF the yellow rectangle before sewing it to the edge of the collar and sleeves. This was because it was going to eb directly touching our skin, I wanted it to feel comfy with no touch edge or fraying :)



This is the inside of the shirt with all the yellow rectangles FOLDED DOWN already, SEWED ALONG THAT FOLD and then pinned to the inside of the shirt.

This part was VERY difficult (REMEMBER THE SHIRT HAS TO BE INSIDE OUT):

When sewing, be VERY careful not to SEW THE EDGES OF THE SLEEVE TOGETHER!! When you press the presserfoot down, MAKE SURE, the other side of the sleeve ISN'T IN LINE WITH IT or else you'll end up sewing both sides of the sleeve together and then ofc you can't put your arm through anymore haha

Sew the tops over the collars :) Notice the edge of the sleeve is smooth, no cut parts/fraying things? It's cos I folded the fabric in half before attaching the whole cuff :D Now it's comfy and looks better too!

When you've finished sewing, cut off stray ends and again, coat edges with nail polish. Note: This wasn't really necessary because it was only the INSIDE of the shirts (and obvs you can't see that when you're wearing it) but I'm a perfectionist and decided to do it anyway.

Both finished shirts :)



I had a bit of leftover fabric so I decided to make two ribbons for our hair:

I measured around my head and added about 5-7cm onto that.

And then I sewed all around the thin strips of fabric and covered ALL the edges in MORE nail polish (again, not necessary in this case but I'm a perfectionist HAHA)

More and more sewing....zzzz

Anyway THEN WE ARE DONE!!! WOOHOO! It took me ALL off teh weekend before muck-up to finish 2 costumes (the worst part was when I finished one thing and felt so proud then I was like NOES gotta do it ALL over again for another costume :( ) But yes, I am immensely proud HAHA and my sewing skills got exponentially better after this project. May I just say, advice: Before you start sewing take at least a couple of days (I took a week) to really really visualize what you want it to look like, what EACH step should be, even draw sketches or else if you begin sewing without a plan you're going to get lost pretty soon.

Project length: Defintiely 8+ hours, not sure exact timing. I actually got a wrist sprain for a day cos of sewing for so long in all the same time period HAHA I didn;t really give myself a break because my mum needs to use the sewing machine most days and if I got it done quickly I wouldn't get in her way when she was working :D

Hope these tips helped for any future sewing plans you guys might have!

Love: Michelle

P.S. if you want more pics on how the final product looks, feel free to look on my facebook, I have an album of muck-up photos :D