Make a Girly Twirly Skirt

Here's an easy 2 tier skirt to make your little girl. No patterns just a few measurements. You need a waist measurement and how long you want your skirt. I typically use an existing skirt in the closet that fits to judge how long to make the girl's skirts. For the 2 tier skirt I usually like it a few inches below the knee, but I am guilty of often making them big so they last 2 years. The above skirt I just finished for K who is 5.5 years and wears a 6. Here is one I've made for the 2 year old.

You need to cut 3 pieces of fabric. The 3 pieces will be the same length and I use somewhere between 40" and 45" for girls 12mos to 6+. Kalla's waist is 21". You want your top tier to be shorter from top to bottom than the second tier. For an idea of measurements I used the following for the girl's:

Kalla size 6~ top tier 7" x 45" cut 1

second tier 13" x 45" cut 2

Maressa size 2T~ top tier 7" x 42"

second tier 7" x 42" cut 2

If the skirt you want to make is somewhere in between, add or subtract inches from the second tier cuts. The top tier includes 2" for the elastic casing. When you've got your strips cut, sew the top tier piece on the sides (you can use french seam here if you don't have a serger for a neat look). Now with right sides facing sew the 2 second tier strips together. You should now have 2 tubes, one about twice as wide as the other.

Now that your side seams are done and finished how you want, you want to take the really long tube (the second tier) and hem the bottom. You can hem it plain, or do a rick rack hem, or use bias tape (like I am above) or contrast fabric hem. The prepackaged bias goes on much like the contrast fabric. The main difference is that it has all these neat little folds already. If you look carefully at your prepackaged bias tape, you'll notice one side is folded wider than the other just very slightly. You'll start with that side on the wrong side of your hem. Open the tape and pin it edge to edge. Sew down in fold. Now fold it over to the front side and topstitch it down.

Now that your hem is done, you'll need to gather the top of the second tier. This is how I prefer to do it (not necessarily the ONLY way). I gather from seam to seam making it easier to get even gathers along the skirt. So you'll start at one seam, backstitch, then turn your stitch dial up to the highest number. Stitch across til you get to the other seam. Now when you pull your skirt away from the machine to cut the threads, cut the top thread short, but pull the bottom/bobbin thread long. This will be your thread you will pull to gather. Now start again at the seam you stopped at and repeat last step to other seam.

Now pull your bobbin threads carefully and gather both sides.

Now with the way I make these skirts, I generally only have one seam for the top tier (you can always cut it in half and sew both sides if you like). So to help me gather each side neatly and evenly to the top tier, I mark the opposite side of the seam to show me where the 'other' seam would have been. I gather and pin right sides facing and match seam to seam and seam to mark.

Now sew carefully across gathers to attach the tiers. Be careful that the fabric on the bottom is feeding flat as it easily catches under and creases.

Here is where I serge that seam. If you don't have a serger, then use a zig zag stitch or over casting stitch on your machine to cut down on fraying.

This part is a totally preference thing. I like my tiers to be topstitched down. So if you like, on the right side of your skirt topstitch the top tier right above the gather.

Now you are ready to put in your elastic casing. Take the top of your skirt and fold down about 1 1/2", tucking under the edge, pin and sew leaving a spot to pull the elastic through. Measure your elastic to the waist of the little girl. Cut exactly the same size, not bigger. For example, K is 21" and I cut that length of elastic (and I use 3/4 elastic). This is because you want the finished waist to be a tad smaller than the waist or it will never stay up. Once you've pulled the elastic through (I use a safety pin attached to pull it through), then sew the 2 ends of the elastic together. Now carefully stretch the open spot area to sew that down. Now you are done with the skirt! I have labels for my clothes, but if you don't and want to mark the front, sew a button or bow to the front center, or stitch an initial on the inside center back where a label would go with embroidery floss.
Ta da! Now go applique some cute shirts to go with it! And now that I see this skirt all done, I'm thinking I need to make one momma size!!

Spring Cleaning!

Before I got sick last week, I'd started some serious spring cleaning/organizing! I've been working hard on the girl's room and moving all of K's stuff into M's room and sharing a closet and space. The 'girly' toys are stored not in the playroom like the rest of the toys. I like (and K I'm sure is relieved that they aren't) to keep them separate out of boy's destruction. So it's been some work to figure out how to get them all organized, easily found and cleaned up in one room. I found these great wire baskets at Home Depot in the closet organization aisle the other day. They are nice and deep and hold lots of stuff and slide easily under the bunk beds (and look nice too).

What do they hold you ask?? Why all of Ponyville and some LPS of course! One basket holds the Ponyville rug and all their houses, the other all the ponies, pets and accessories. I got the smaller baskets I think at Big Lots a year ago or so, and all the teeny tiny pieces goes in a plastic sealed up box.

The rest of her stuff are in these great bins with snap lids and handle in her closet. BAB clothes, Polly Pocket, tiny princesses, few Strawberry Shortcake. I feel the secret to having things well organized for kids is that they can see them from the outside. So everything isn't hidden and actually played with. These are also very easy to tote to other rooms, play then clean up. Got these babies at Target.

In the sewing room, I added these cubbies found at Target on sale $12 off! It holds all my lovely Target dollar finds, party favor collections and gifty stuff.

I tackled the laundry room/closet with these cheap (again see through AND labeled) shoe boxes, 5 for $5 at Kroger.

And I cleaned out our shoe/coat closet. It's a nice sized closet and I have a shelf for kids shoes on one side, the other side (not pictured) with hooks to put their school bags and jackets on that they can reach. In the middle on the floor under all the 'big people' coats is a plastic crate with miscellaneous empty bags we use for various things.

I also cleaned out my closet and came out with a whole laundry basket of clothes to donate.

So.....now I can finish up that skirt tutorial I wanted to do. So I'm off to my sewing room, open up the door and let fresh air in and crank up the radio and do some serious sewing (the kids are sleeping/having quiet time!) for an hour!

Our spring break trip

The last half of our spring break, we traveled to SC where one of my sisters and my mom lives. While there we took a [cold] picnic to the zoo. It's a small zoo, but the kids loved it nonetheless. Here K is waving to the baby giraffes.They eventually came up closer as people were throwing food for them. They would spread their legs out far to bend down to get the food on the ground.
We also enjoyed the antics of Bob the baby orangutan. It was so fun to listen to the kids (especially 3 year old Micah) squeal in laughter at him.

Also on our way back to AL, we stopped off at hubby and my alumni (and where we met), Clemson University. Z has really become quite a big fan of all things Clemson. He found the stadium awesome. We have decided to make an effort this fall to take him to a game....he is way excited!

More crafting/sewing to come next week. I got my serger back the other day, but am feeling quite under the weather at the moment. I spent all the week getting the house together so I could have some guilt free sewing and now I'm pretty sick. :(

Whew! What a week!

First of all let me share this adorable quilt. It is K's preschool class quilt for the letter Q this week. The teacher sent home each student a square to decorate however they liked. Another mommy pieced it together and it was sent to me to add the batting, backing and binding.

Kalla drew a picture of our family with fabric markers. The fabric we had wasn't so good and they bled. She didn't want me to replace the fabric and do it over (we already did it over once when she messed the first one up). We wanted to add rickrack and button flowers, but ran out of time.

This is the fabric I choose for the back. I really like it and want some more as it would go so well in our playroom.

Anyway, it's been a hectic week having returned from our trip on Sunday night. The laundry, unpacking, cleaning the house and we've had a bunch of errands to run every morning. Maressa has been particularly active in her mischievous-ness. Yesterday not only did she get a hold of another marker, but she wrote all over her palms and up her arms with it, then later washed herself up in the toliet. She also dug out a candy thrown in the garbage by my computer and was eating it wrapper and all (it was a now and later). I swear I do watch her and I keep the markers in a locked closet, but the older 2 had them out earlier. And I was just thinking of taking the locks off the toliets soon as we will start potty training this summer! My first 2 were not like this at all so I'm naturally gotten kinda slack. Micah we had to lock the pantry and kitchen to keep him out of trouble (though he busted them anyway).

Another hem tutorial...contrasting fabric...and some cute skirts

I made up some little simple skirt sets for my shop. Kinda a funky bright colored sets.

And follows is a little tutorial on a quick easy way to add a contrasting fabric hem. This can be used on skirts, dresses and pants. :)

First you cut the width of your skirt that you want to have a contrasting fabric hem. Then cut a strip a few inches longer than your skirt width and 2-3" wide (depending on how much fabric you want to be on the hem...I used 3" here). If you need to use 2 strips to get the length, sew them together on one end, but leave the other end open.

Now your skirt should be together on the sides (I wait to sew up my waist and add elastic til after my hem is done). Start at one seam on the underside of the skirt and fold the side of your strip under about an inch and lay the strip down on the raw edge of the bottom of the skirt with the right side facing the wrong side of the skirt.

Now sew along edge and last end of the strip does not need to be turned under...it will not show when you flip the strip over.

Here is what the front side of your skirt will look like when you've finished this step.

Here is a close up of the 2 ends. The part on the bottom when sewed is turned under, but the top one is not.

Now with skirt flipped out right side out, turn your sew on strip up to meet the raw edge of the skirt.
Now turn it up once more and topstitch down. Now you are done! Hope this wasn't too confusing, because I realize that if I didn't know how to do it already, I probably would have a hard time understanding this explanation! ;)

Oh and I finally added pictures to my hoodie towel tutorial too if you want to check it out. :)

I'm hoping to get my serger back soon. And I will do a simple skirt, twirl skirt and bubble skirt tutorial. For now we are headed to visit family tomorrow for the last half of spring break. See ya next week!

Little Girly gift

Here's my latest little girl bday gift. It was for a very close friend of mine's 2 year old (my littlest and her [only] are a month apart). I made her a large black apple doll (I took the pattern up 150%). Her little apron is removable.

I made her this little apron.

And some felt cookies, felt plates and painted a small wood rolling pin, spoon and wood spatula and put them all in this cupcake box I got at Hobby Lobby.

A little tutorial on the felt plates as follows:
Cut out 2 circles (I used a small bowl for tracing) and 2 circle edges out of stiff interfacing. Cut 4 more full circles in white felt.
Place the circle edges on the full circle interfacing pieces and sew down.

Now sandwich the interfacing pieces in between 2 felt circles. Sew along the edge of the circles and trim up. Now sew carefully around the inside indention made from circle edges.

Add some tiny rick rack trim along the edge.

M played with these at the party after they were opened. I'm thinking I need to make her a set. She especially enjoyed the felt cookies and feeding them to the baby. :)

Super quick and easy Chicken Parmesan Sandwich

One of my fav sandwiches is a chicken parmesan sandwich (I'm not much of a cold sandwich eater). I used to live for the days when Burger King would make them (for a limited time of course). A few years ago, I decided to take things into my own hands. I made my own fast food style version. I cook a frozen breaded chicken patty in my toaster oven. Then I place it on a bun, add pizza sauce (you can get small jars of it at the grocery store) and a slice of mozzarella cheese on top of the sauce and top of the bun on top of that! Then I microwaved it for 30 secs or so until the cheese is melted. Mmmmmm!

Day in the Life of a (Busy) Toddler: A wordless Wed type of post