Star Wars Easter

I bought this Star Wars Easter fabric on clearance a few years ago. And there it sat. For some reason, it popped into my mind the other night, and then the race was on. I had three yards, so I briefly thought about making a Madison dress. But I also wanted to make darn sure that it would reach my niece before Easter, so that was out. (Also, I'm not sure if I had anything to coordinate, so....oh, well.)

Instead, I reached for the trusty skirt pattern. Or at least skirt pattern inspiration. I cut this out Tuesday afternoon/evening, stitched it completely before going to bed Tuesday night, and mailed it Wednesday morning.

The main skirt piece was cut 20.5 inches long (because that's the size of my biggest square ruler) by WOF. The ruffle piece is 7 inches by WOF. I made the ruffle a double one so that there would be no hemming. 

It's a little busy, but I'm thinking she's going to like it. I didn't have time to make a matching doll skirt, but that can come later.....

 

Twirls and Lace

Since I was on a twirly roll - and also/mainly because I happened to find the cut pieces when I was looking for something else - I decided to finish up these twirly skirts I started from leftover linen pieces from baby slings. (These were also cut and then put into time out when the serger was misbehaving, but it's been behaving so beautiful for these that I'm thrilled!) I had decided some lace overlays on the middle tier would make them more fun for a little girl than just a plain linen skirt.

First up, the olive linen. This picture doesn't quite accurately represent the color, but it's close. I paired it with a light silver lace. The waist is pretty bulky, because I didn't want to try gathering the lace onto a shorter tier, but it'll work for a child. And instead of doing a double-layer ruffle to avoid hemming, I used the same binding that I had used on this sling. It's a black with grey music symbols. I had enough of this left that the skirt was fairly full.

Both the teal linen and the pink binding were from slings as well, but not from the same sling. Yikes! I actually had intended to use a silver binding on this (which I believe is the one I used on that baby sling), but I asked my niece's preference, and she wanted the "crazy pink." Yes, ma'am! (The "crazy pink" was the binding for a black linen sling, for one of my work buddies.) I didn't have as much of this left, so the skirt isn't as full, and I cut the ruffle at half the length of the olive one. But it's still cute and twirly, and hopefully my niece loves it!

Just for fun, I also bound the raw edge of the waistband, instead of folding it under. To avoid a ton of bulk from the edges coming together, I applied the binding to the waist edge, then serged both sides of the skirt, then stitched them together, and then pressed the seam open. I also stitched it down to either side of the seamline. I think it made it look really nice inside.

Next up? Appliqued shirts!

Twirly skirts!

Just a boy mom, drowning in ruffles.....

So since my serger was behaving and helping me make fantastic ruffles for the twirly dresses, I decided that I should finally bust out some twirly summer skirts I'd cut for my niece last year, before putting them in time-out because the serger was being a pain. After all, I didn't want her to outgrow them before she wore them!  And these really are perfect for summer.

I've made quite a few Rachel skirts for my niece, though I haven't blogged them all. These were cut out in a size 8. (Fortunately, I record details when I cut them, because it's been a year! I wouldn't have remembered.) I used to use buttonhole elastic on her skirts, but these ones just use regular elastic. I figure she'll outgrow them before the expandable elastic would have been super helpful. And of course, her doll needed matching skirts!

My favorite - I'm not really a paisley person, but this print is super cute. And I love the teal and fuschia.

I thought the orange dots were fun.

Love the strawberries and bicycles in this main print! I thought the whole thing was super summery.

As usual, the fabrics are from JAF's tutti fruitti line. I love that weight for summery twirly skirts, especially since I double the hem ruffles to avoid hemming miles of ruffles. And they have such bright fun prints!

New twirly skirt!

My niece looooves her twirly skirts. I hear about it frequently, and I get to see them in action in pictures that her parents post! So when I stopped into a JAF with no plan in mind, I spotted the Christmas fabric on sale and just had to make her a new skirt to wear at Christmas. This is yet another Rachel skirt - I clearly haven't blogged all the ones I made, but there are quite a few.

Both the stripes and the gingerbread fabrics have a glittery metallic texture. I think they look like a lot of fun together! I lengthened the skirt a bit and basically just used the pattern for the measurements. The trim ruffle is doubled to avoid the need to hem. And both the main and trim pieces are done at 2:1 fullness. Since my serger decided that it didn't want to gather ruffles this week, I had to do them the old fashioned way, by zigzagging over thick crochet thread and then manually pulling the gathers and arranging them. Not. Fun. But I think she's going to love the finished result!

As usual, the doll skirt is a free online pattern.

More twirly skirts!

So of course I couldn't stop with just those previously blogged little girl skirts.  Um, no.  I had bought enough of the tutti fruitti fabric in my initial shopping trip for five skirts.  And then when I went back for yardage for the Sophia skirt, I had gotten enough for two of those.  So it was time to finish these and move them out before summer ended and my niece couldn't wear them!  (Yes, I'm blogging late....again....)

These are all iterations of the Rachel skirt.  I used my serger on all of them to ruffle the middle and trim tiers.  I really like how they turned out!  The purple wavy lines/colored dots on white skirt is a size 4 (my niece is going to be four soon), with regular elastic.  The other three are all size 5, with buttonhole elastic.  I figure that way she can use them now, but she won't outgrow them before next year.

And I had to make another Sophia!  This one is also a size 5 (the last one was a size 4), with buttonhole elastic.  Takes some of the guesswork out of these, which is great!  I included a note with them for my sister-in-law to let me know how that holds up in the wash.  These recent skirts are my first time using it, but I really love it in my boys' store-bought pants!

The Husband was surprised to see this combination, and even more surprised to hear that I'd been the one to pick it.  He thought it looked very summery, like corn, and I told him that was the intention.  I really stink at combining more than two fabrics, so I was just looking for two coordinating colors that were in the dragonfly print.  Still not my style at all, but I think it looks good.  Hopefully my niece likes it!

Little 4 Awhile Rachel Skirt

So I had made my niece a trial skirt - the Sophia Tiered Skirt from Funktional Threads - and then waited to hear the reaction and feedback on the sizing.  Well, it was a hit!  And they said that it was a bit big, which was good!  So of course I had intentions - and fabric already - to make some more.  But first, I decided to try another - less intensive - skirt pattern.  Enter the Rachel skirt, from Little 4 Awhile.  This has the added advantage of being free!  (Anyone who makes skirts for charity, take note!)

For my first iteration, I basically made it as is.  It is a very basic skirt which can be made in either knit or woven fabric.  I chose to use woven for this.  The skirt is gathered to fit the waistband, and the bottom trim band is the exact length of the skirt - no ruffles here.  This is a size 4, and I made the elastic an inch shorter than I had on the Sophia skirt, based on the feedback of that one being a bit large.

For my next iteration, I used my ruffler foot or my serger to play around with gathering - which made it non exact.  (I was using both the ruffler foot and the serger for various pieces at that point - don't remember which I used here.)  The only thing with using either of those - which worked great, by the way! - is that unless you do more math than what I was willing to do at that point, you don't know exactly how the gathering is going to turn out.  I.e., you need to ruffle more than you think you'll need and then put it together.  This didn't bother me - I just cut extra length for my middle and bottom tiers, stitched them together, gathered them, and then put them together with the waistband before stitching the last seam.  (Does that make sense?)  And after the first one, I decided to go with ruffles at the bottom edge - these are double layer, because I have no desire to hem it all. ;)

So there's a story with these two skirts.  A friend's little daughter really loves Spiderman, which is a bit unusual, and her favorite color is brown, which is rather unusual.  She just had a birthday, and I thought it'd be really neat to try to combine these two favorites.  Sadly, there were no Spiderman prints available which were really brown-friendly, but this was the closest I could find.  And this brown print was the one that best coordinated, so I went with it.  At the time, I wasn't sure what pattern I was going to use, so I bought more than I thought I'd need.  (Um, yeah....I had more than enough to make a second skirt for my niece.)  Since I didn't know a waist measurement (and didn't want to spoil the complete surprise by asking), I used buttonhole elastic in this one - my first time.  I heard that it turned out great!