Weddingbee Blog

I really had very little interest in spending any amount of money on a garter. We are passing on the garter toss tradition (how did that even get started, anyway?), so no one but me (and Burger I guess) will see it, anyway!

I mentioned earlier that I had recently participated in a rural medicine month in a small town about 2 hours outside of Baltimore. I thought it would largely be a “craft-free” month, as I didn’t bring any of my supplies. Alas, overwhelming boredom quickly set in, and that, combined with the fact that my office was flanked by a Michaels on one side and a Jo-Ann Fabrics on the other, led to quite a bit of crafting!

One project that I completed there was my garter. I checked out Jo-Ann’s as well as a smaller, local fabric store, where I found 10 yards of a gorgeous rosey pink lace trim in the remnants department. For two dollars. I grabbed it, along with some pretty lilac colored ribbon that I thought looked beautiful with the lace. I ended up having to buy elastic and a needle and thread, because I didn’t even have that with me!

I’m sorry that I don’t have pictures of the process, but I wouldn’t recommend completing this project the way that I did anyway, because I sewed it completely by hand. This project took me multiple hours (like 4 or 5 I think), and would have taken probably 30 minutes on my machine. I didn’t mind because I was doing it to take up time purposefully, but if give the option, you should obviously do it on a sewing machine, for sure!

Here are the steps to creating this look:


Materials:

• Lace trim - width of your choosing, mine was about a 1/2 inch wide
• Ribbon - again, your choice of width, mine was about 1/4 inch
• Elastic - the same diameter as your ribbon is easiest
• Needle & thread (or a sewing machine!)

1. Measure the circumference of your thigh at the height you want to wear your garter (either with measuring tape or with the lace trim itself) and cut 1.5 times that length (so if your thigh is 20 cm, you need 30 cm of trim, for example).
2. Repeat step 1 so that you have 2 identical lengths of lace trim.
3. Take your elastic and stretch it out around your thigh until it feels comfortably snug but not too tight. I saw some other tutorials that said to make it “half the length of your lace trim,” but I just chose to wing it and cut the length to my comfort level.
4. Cut one piece of ribbon the length of your lace trim pieces + 12 -14 inches.
5. Sew the two pieces of lace trim together, flared edges facing out (takes foreeeevvveerrr by hand).
6. Lay your double sided lace trim down with your ribbon on top. Allow 6-7 inches of excess ribbon to hang off the end of the lace trim. Anchor the ribbon onto the middle of the lace - right over the seam you have just created by sewing the trim pieces together. Once you are finished you should have 6-7 inches of ribbon hanging off the other end of the lace as well.
7. Anchor your elastic edge to the end of your lace very tightly and directly in the middle of your lace on the OPPOSITE side, “behind” your ribbon.
8. OK, this is the only challenging part of the whole project. You’ve got to sew your elastic onto your lace trim so that it crinkles up all pretty-like (technical terms, of course). I have no exact formula for the next part, and what I did goes something like this: I pulled the elastic taught and laid it smoothly up against the lace and then placed another anchoring stitch (about every 1/2 inch). That way, once you release the tension, the lace bubbles up ever so slightly (mine are not perfect at all). Repeat for the entire length of lace trim (forrrreeeeevvvvveerrrr).
9. Tie the excess ribbon into a bow. Anchor it with a stitch if you’d like.

Voila!