Seven Skirts

I have been blessed with six nieces on my husband's side of the family. If you include my own Miss E, that make 7 granddaughters in total. Because I am a wonderful auntie... cough.. cough.. snicker... snicker I decided to make them all twirly skirts and embellished Ts. It won't be long until they day comes when it won't be so "cool" for the 2 eldest girls to wear something that matches the little ones that are 6 and 7 years younger. SO.... I got to the task of finding cute fabrics that would appeal to all the girls. I found many of them at a great shop in Stewartville, MN called All in Stitches. Needless to say I had a grand time buying fabric for this fun project!

I had a project-for-hire earlier in the summer and thus procrastinated my task a bit! Luckily a friend of mine came to visit that week and she helped me turn out the skirts and shirts!

So enjoy my "oh so cute" nieces and their matchy outfits! I sure did!

As noted before, I adapted a pattern by Pink Fig called The Patchwork Skirt and T-shirt for this project.

Fun summer dress!

I was trolling several blogs that I follow and one of my favorites the polkadot chair had a great pattern on her Tuesday Tutorial!
I picked up these really cute fabrics at the shop I used to work at, Susan's Calico Creations in Fulton, IL. Mom and I went there for a retreat a few weekends ago. These fabrics are so fun and Miss E just loves them.



She had fun helping decide the layout of the fabrics! The pattern is pretty easy. A little bit of gathering. No biggie after ALL those twirly skirts I have been making!

Just a litte something

My cousin had her 1st baby last September. I finally got to meet this little sweet pea over Memorial Day weekend. Of course I had to take her a twirly skirt an embellished tshirt! It turned out so cute. Just as sweet as she is!

Twirly Skirt Part 2

As I was preparing to head to Iowa for a fun weekend with friends, I was reminded that sweet little "D's" birthday was the Monday after our visit. Well... what this curly Sue needed for her 4th bday was a twirly skirt. Miss D is a very girly girl! Loves shoes and all things twirly and princess-like!! Thank goodness I had plenty of extra fabric on hand for a skirt that would be similar to Miss E's. That way they could be cute matchy twirly girls together on ISU campus for VEISHEA!!
Her skirt was a little simplified. I used long strips instead of the patchwork squares! A piece of cake!!



Miss D enjoys her skirt! She was playing in the dirt with her skirt all around her. I couldn't help taking a few shots!

Twirly Skirt

I bought a pattern last fall for a patchwork twirly skirt. It is really a cute pattern by Pink Fig. I collected some cute fabrics from JoAnn fabrics and the great quilt shop downtown here in Hudson called St. Croix County Dry Goods. They have really FUN fabrics.

After making Miss E's Easter dress I decided I was ready to tackle this skirt.
Actually, it is pretty simple. It just takes more time because you have to "finish" all the seams with a serger-like or zigzag stitch, which takes a bit longer.





In this photo, I have the top waist piece and the 1st row of patchwork.
This project does require gathers. My Mom and Mother-in-Law have helped me with gathering projects before and have given me great tips. The manual for my sewing machine also has information on gathering.

This skirt does not contain any type of "pattern" pieces. Is is written more like a quilt pattern, telling you the size of pieces to cut and not making you use a pattern or a template.

I must say as I read the pattern I was thinking.... "Golly this little skirt has ALOT of fabric in it!" The bottom striped piece is 3, 39" x 6" strips sewn together. But it makes for quite a twirly skirt and Miss E LOVES it. I'm sure I'll be making many more. She enjoyed choosing and laying out the blocks in an order that she liked.

Easter Dress

As I was shopping for Miss E's Easter dress, I was disappointed with the selection. I am not one to buy a foofy Easter dress that is impractical and rarely worn again. Of course the thought popped into my head..."hmmmm.. I guess I could make her dress." Which lead me straight to JoAnn fabrics to see if I could find a pattern that, A) I thought would look cute on her and B) that I could complete without pulling my hair out.

This is the pattern I found.



During this project, I relearned many things about following a pattern that I had forgotten.

1) Read the pattern CAREFULLY!! Closely examine how you should lay the fabrics and pattern pieces on the fabric BEFORE cutting. I didn't do this... but thankfully remembered before I got too far down the road. If you don't lay out fabrics correctly and pattern pieces right side down or right side up, you will be short of fabric OR your pieces will NOT FIT!!



2) Making clothing is an exercise in PATIENCE!! Read directions very carefully and be willing to laugh at yourself while tearing out seams! I kept trying to rush through it and at one point sewing the lining instead of the bodice etc. etc. I ended up with the zipper in backwards. HA HA!! At least I can laugh about it now.

3) When a pattern says to use a 5/8" seam, DO IT!! Or else your garment will not fit correctly. Sewing seams when making clothing is so much different than making quilts. With some practice I am getting the hang of it. I also use the serger stitch on my sewing machine quite a bit.

Making the Dress:

I sewed the bodice first. I have done this before, so it wasn't too bad.



As it was time to make the skirt of the dress,I learned a new term, stay.. This is what you sew tiers to... a stay. I was confused at first, but it made sense after I read the directions more carefully.



This dress has 3 tiers and really is a cute pattern. You can see the stay underneath the tiers.




And finally after battling with the zipper way more than necessary!! (God really thought I needed to work on my patience with this project.) The dress is finished.



Miss E really loves it and is excited to wear it for Easter and more.

Something new

I'm not a seamstress. I am a quilter. I don't know much about making or repairing clothing, but I try my best. So, today I tackled putting a new zipper in my spring jacket. I really love this jacket, but it didn't have a separating zipper. So when I'd get in my car with it zipped up, it was putting too much stress on the zipper and of course.. it busted. SIGH!!! Of course.. I am a handy person. I can put in a new one! RIGHT??? RIGHT!!! However, you don't usually find zippers that perfectly match the one you are taking out. At least not at Jo Ann fabrics. But I have a dark grey/blue coat and black will have to do.

I did conquer this project today and am pleased with the results. Sorry, no photos. I just wanted to encourage people to try to fix something that is broken before throwing it out. Reduce.. reuse...recycle. Have a great day!

What is old has become new.

Miss E had these adorable jeans with stitched appliques on them. Just so cute! However, they were falling apart. Holes in the knees and getting too short to boot. So I thought.. hmmm... they still fit her in the waist.. let's see if we can transform these into a skirt.

I did some searching on the web and came across a few sites. Site 1 and Site 2 have you adding a little panel of fabric in the center. Well, Miss E is itty bitty, so I just cut open the seams and used these sites for reference and did it my way.

These jeans have stretch in them, which helps. When I sewed them, I used a serger-like stitch to help with strength and to finish the edge I just turned it up and stitched it down with varigated thread and a cute little flower stitch that I seldom use on my machine. There was also a butterfly farther down on the leg of the jeans that I cut around and just stitched down with a small zig zag.

Miss E loves her new skirt! I'm glad that I was able to reuse some jeans that were beyond patching. So now her cousins will get a cute skirt handed down instead of holey jeans!!