Hopscotch Skirt

This skirt took hours. In the end, though, it was worth it. It looks adorable on M, and the pockets are cute. The fabric is cotton, so she can wear it in the spring too. The pattern is the Oliver + S Hopscotch, I made the shirt back here. (When I made the shirt, I said that the pattern ran small. The shirt pattern is small; the skirt is not, it's just right.)

I went to the store to get black buttons, and came home with pink flowers. I am so glad I did! She wears the skirt with the black shirt, and the whole thing looked too dark for a 2-year-old. The buttons girly'd it up perfectly.

(Shot of the elastic back. She can pull it up/down herself.)

(Close-up of the cute pockets.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

There is a good tutorial for this type of skirt on Made. My sister and I took a trip to Jomar (to look for bags, but incidentally, all I came home with was fabric ... a very large bag of it ... ). We saw this cotton lace and loved it, and decided that M should have a Thanksgiving skirt from it! Add some bright $1/yard fabric underneath ... hooray!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wrap Skirt

This skirt came out of frustration with all the details in the Oliver + S Hopscotch pattern. I guess I wanted something easy. I made it out of fleece scraps. Similar pattern to the flouncy skirt, but this one is a wrap.

She wore it with a black long-sleeved t-shirt and zebra print converse. Hooray! I love dressing a girl!

Short tutorial:
I used fleece, and the ends do not fray, so there was no hemming. This skirt looks good in just about every type of fabric, just keep in mind that if you choose a fabric that frays, you'll have to finish all the edges.

Cutting:
1) 6 pieces for the skirt.
Measure the waist. Divide by 5. Round up if you get something other than a whole number. :) That is how wide to make the TOP of each skirt panel. The BOTTOM of each skirt panel should be double the width of the top. 
For example: M's waist is 19".  For simplicity's sake, I rounded up to 20".
20 / 5 = 4
Each piece I cut was 4" wide at the top, 8" wide at the bottom, and 8.5" long.
With six of these pieces, that gives me a 24" waist (an extra 4" panel for the wrap).
2) 1 waistband
for length: (waist of skirt x 3) + 6"
and 2" wide
our skirt waist was 24", so: (24 x 3) + 6 = 78
2" x 78"- long enough to wrap around twice AND tie.
If you need to piece together the fabric to make a strip long enough, that's fine - it won't really show.

Sewing:
1) Sew the skirt pieces with right sides together (See below)
2) Trim the bottom of the skirt so that it is rounded
2) Find the center of the waistband, and pin it to the top center of the skirt. Then continue pinning the waistband to the skirt, from the center out to the ends.
3) Sew the waistband to the skirt top with right sides together.
Done!

Lacey Skirt & Tutorial

  

A long skirt from a mini-skirt. Super quick (i.e. super gratifying).

This was a size 0 mini-skirt. It had two layers of fabric (lace and lining). I measured M's waist, laid the skirt flat, and cut through both layers on the side opposite of the buttons at the waist.

Next I opened up the layers, laid them flat ...

... and pinned & sewed them with right sides together. Lace sewn to lace, lining sewn to lining, right sides together.

This left just one gap, the waistband, which I just sewed with right sides together.

All done!

I sewed a ribbon to each end of the leftover fabric, and made M a little apron too. :)

Flouncy Skirt Tutorial

This skirt has just a little bit of twirl. Just enough to make a spin look pretty, but not enough to get in the way of keeping up with big brothers!

You will need:
- Knit (stretch) fabric (An old t-shirt or sweatshirt would work well.)
- 1" elastic
- About an hour

I used my serger for this, as it just makes working with stretch fabrics easy. If you don't have a serger, loosen the presser foot on your sewing machine so that it doesn't stretch the fabric as you're sewing. Do a few practice runs on scraps before you start - sometimes it takes a bit of fiddling. :)

1) Measure waist and length (measure length from 1" below waist to desired length).

2) Cut out waistband. It should be a rectangle that is 3" x (waist measurement - 1"). For example, M's waist is 19". So I cut out her waistband as 3"x18".

3) Cut out FOUR skirt pieces in the shape shown above. The top of each piece should be 1/4 the length of the waistband (mine were 4.5" each). The wider you cut the bottom, the more the skirt will swing out.

4) Sew the SIDES of the skirt pieces with right sides together. In the above picture, I have one seam left to do.

5) Sew the SHORT ends of the waistband together with right sides together.

6) Fold the waistband in half LENGTHWISE with WRONG sides together, and pin to the right side of the skirt.

I put two pins in one spot to remind myself to leave an opening for threading elastic through.

7) Sew all those raw edges together (should be three layers of fabric) to form the waist band. Don't forget to leave an opening for threading elastic!

8) Thread your waistband elastic through the opening, and sew the ends of the elastic together.

9) Sew the hole in the waistband closed. Almost done!

10) The bottom edges of my skirt were pointy, so I trimmed them (see below).

 

11) (Optional!) The skirt needed a little extra something, so I cut hearts out of fabric scraps from the last dress I made. I used a small, narrow zig-zag stitch to attach them.

All done!