A climber's garter

I wasn't originally thinking about doing a garter, my husband seemed to like the idea but said it was completely up to me. My dad though when I mentioned did was almost horrified that I thought about doing it, maybe he thinks it's too old fashioned?

In the end I decided to go with my gut, I wanted a garter, one to throw away to the guys since I had a bouquet to throw to the girls, and I also wanted to make a keep sake for my husband.
I had two options: buy one or make one.

If I had bought one, I would have gone with either a University of Florida or a Miami Dolphins garter. My hubby is a big fan and I wanted something fun. Here is an example from Etsy seller: GartersbyKristi.
I like the fact that it has a fancy garter for keepsake and a lighter version to throw. And all that for only $23. I have to say that for personalized and really cute garters, Etsy is your friend. No question to it.
I like that some Etsy members manage to make a very feminine garter out of a more Masculine theme. I think we would have both laughed with one like that.

But in the end I decide to make my own, it made more sense with our budget and I could really personalize it. I got the idea from Mrs Peach post on a DIY (Sports) Garter. It looked pretty easy and I figured I would be able to manage it on my own. I did additional research and found several online tutorials, including this one: Make your own garter which had good information on how to get the right measurement for your fabric and elastic.

My garter was going to be a little bit different. My husband loves to climb and boulder and I wanted to acknowledge that side of him. I knew I wouldn't find any patter for such and idea, but with a bit of creativity it had to be manageable. My idea was to have a simple garter decorated with a very thin climbing like rope of about 3mm and a small carabiner (like the key chain kind).

I went to the local fabric store and bought lace, organza ribbon, ribbon and elastic.
I went to Diamond Brand (a sports store) and bought 2 key chain carabiners and a little bit over my thigh size lenght of 2mm rope.

1. I cut the Organza and Lace so it would be over twice the circumference of my leg where I will wear the garter. Same for the ribbon (same lenghts as the lace and organza).
Cut the elastic so it's tight enough to hold where you will wear the garter, but give extra inches for sewing.

2. By hand I sew the sateen ribbon close to the middle of the lace with a matching thread colol (same for the organza), as I went, I pushed the elastic in, making sure I had a safety pin attached to the end so it wouldn't get all the way in. It makes it easier that way.

3. I sew together both extremities of the elastic, making on last check on my leg to be sure I had it right. Then I sew together the lace extremities and the ribbon extremities. My work was far from perfect but it held together. And I figured I would have my Figure 8 Knot on top of the stitches.
At that point you have a very basic garter and all that is left to do is to decorate it.

4. At that point, it was the trickiest part for me, I had to attach the cord to the garter. It's a stiff material and it wouldn't work quite like like the ribbon and fabric with their little waves.
So what I did was to put the garter around my tight, make a figure 8 knot of the rope on top of the garter. Then I used pins to keep the rope in place, and I made stitches every few inches, looping around the rope and going in the fabric (be careful to avoid the elastic) to attach it.
For the final touch I clipped the very light carabiner to the rope.

And voilà, my Climber's garter was done. Here they are on my wedding day. They were also my something blue.
If I was to change one thing, I would probably had more anchor point for the rope, because as you can see it didn't stay straight.
My Hubby removed the garters very discreetly and I don't think anyone even saw us doing it, they were too busy dancing. He liked them so much that he didn't even send the organza one to the single mens around us (we would have removed the carabiner of course).