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Friday, February 17, 2012

A Birthday Skirt


What better than a birthday occasion to craft my first skirt. Since I am still very much a novice seamstress, I used the Made tutorial for "a simple skirt." It truly was a simple pattern. I'll definitely be making more of them. I had my eye on this fabric print for the curtains in Brynn's bedroom, but I figured she'd prefer more blue in the print for those. So, when I wanted to attempt a skirt for her birthday photos, I knew this hummingbird/floral print would be just right. Brynn's favorite part of the print are the little blue birds. I love it. I had to rip out the bottom hem and do it over because my needle must have been a bit dull and caused some puckering on the first try. Overall, this little skirt is exactly what I had pictured. I think I may officially have the sewing bug in my system!


Monday, February 13, 2012

Repurposed T-shirt Skirt

I used an old HHS t-shirt to make a Valentine's Day skirt for Brynn. What a fun, quick and super easy way to craft a skirt. It also felt pretty good to be able to use supplies from home without having to put out any money. I got the idea from the blog Somewhat Simple. I'll definitely use this technique again - maybe as a way to practice my free-hand embroidery that I have yet to learn. The best part of this project was being able to use my new cutting mat. My mom is letting me borrow her rotary cutter, so I used a JoAnn's coupon to get a mat - I love it, what a genius tool. Now I just need to wait for another coupon to buy one of the clear ruler-type things (I have no idea what the technical term is) to make it even easier. So, I first cut the t-shirt to about 14 inches in length, keeping in tact the bottom hem of the shirt.

I knew that the writing would not show because of folding it over to make the waist band. The other good part about using a t-shirt is that you don't really need to finish the edges because the jersey material will not fray! So, after pinning the waist band, I sewed it and threaded the elastic through, finishing the skirt.

I then used scrap felt to cut out the letters in "love." I embroidered them onto the hemline of the skirt. This entire project only took about 45 minutes - including the time to hand sew the letters onto the skirt.


The best part is that Brynn loves it. Hopefully she'll wear it to school tomorrow for Valentine's Day! Either way it is a success!