Pleated Skirt

When Kimberly issued the skirt challenge, and showed us her beautiful gathered skirt, I was excited to make my own. For some reason, I thought I could do it without a pattern. I mean, skirts are easy, right? I really don't know what I was thinking. Despite a few little nitpicks here and there, I'm quite pleased with my final product.

I went to my fabric stash and pulled out these coordinating fabrics from Riley Blake's collection. I had a purchased four yards of each at the Happy Quilt warehouse but didn't have anything planned for them. I thought the sunburst fabric would make a fun and colorful skirt. I started out by cutting two rectangles (from selvage to selvage) the length that I wanted for my skirt. I sewed the two pieces together and then sewed a hem. (I did it in black thread, but I wish I'd done it in white. I also should have done a blind hem.) At first, I tried to make a gathered skirt but I didn't like the way it looked. Kimberly suggested I try pleats instead. Never having worked with pleats, did a little internet research and played around with pleating on different scraps of fabric until I found the type of pleats I wanted (there are several types of pleats, who knew?). I then spent a bit of time playing around with my skirt, pinning and tucking until I found a pleat width I liked. I initially make my pleats much wider but I decided to space them about 3 inches apart, which I liked better. I ironed all my pleats in and then topstitched down the front of pleat about 8 inches to keep my pleats in place and to create shape to my skirt. I can't find the tutorial I used as my model, but this tutorial shows how I basically created my skirt.

After sewing my pleats in place, I sewed the two sides together and put in the zipper. I attempted to put in a lapped zipper, but when that failed, I went with the old center-seam standby. Not as refined, but it gets the job done. Next up was the waistband. I wanted to do a black piping to set the waistband off from the rest of the skirt. I love the effect it gives but I should have cut the black fabric on the bias so it would have moved and shaped itself better. Ruth also recommended using linen fabric as it was easy to work with and shape. Don't look too closely on my piping (especially around the curves). It's a mess. But from far away, the effect is quite nice.

The other thing I didn't know about wide waistbands is that they should be cut on the curve so that they will be narrower at the top. That way, they conform to the waist better and offer a snugger fit. My skirt and waistband created a bit of a gap, so I sewed in three makeshift darts in my skirt to lessen the problem.

As you can see, there's still a lot of space in my waistband, but it's much better than it was before. I like my skirts to sit on my hip and not fit too tight. It's not quite as snug as I would have liked, but at least I don't think it's going to fall off me. The final touch was sewing buttonholes and buttons on the waistband tab. Again, here I learned that I should have sewed my buttons closer to the end of the tab. Now, there's a bit of waistband that sticks up.

After making my skirt, I had to make something for Zara as well. I used the coordinating fabric to make this quick onesie dress. It seriously only took me twenty minutes and I think it looks great.

I may have to make some more.

Liz's Introduction and Finished Projects

Liz here. So, introductions first?

My mother was a sewer. Growing up, she made most of our clothes--I remember matching strawberry-print sundresses made for me and my two sisters particularly well--and all of our Halloween costumes. I understood the principles of sewing, but never had much interest in actually sewing myself because my mom just did it better. (Being a perfectionist has it price since I never wanted to try something new if I thought I'd be bad at it.) She did force me to help her sew my pioneer skirt and matching bonnet for our Stake's pioneer-themed Youth Conference when I was 14. But it wasn't until my junior year of high school, when I was faced with an open spot for an elective class, that I decided that sewing might be fun. I took two clothing classes in which I made everything from pillows to simple pajamas pants and skirts to dresses and even a fully lined jacket. I really enjoyed my clothing classes and my mom even gave me her ancient Singer sewing machine (okay, it was really only from the 70s) which weighed approximately 50 pounds. But college derailed my sewing endeavors. I never learned how to use my mom's old machine and grew tired of lugging it from one apartment to the next so I gave it to my sister (a move I still regret, especially since my sister doesn't sew). So I didn't sew for nearly ten years. I had been thinking about buying a simple machine and picking up the hobby again right around the time that Kimberly announced the quilt group. That was all the impetus I needed (that, and Dongdaemun) to start me on my new sewing craze. I love having a creative outlet and I really enjoy making things for my family and others to enjoy.

Zara has two cousins (and 3 second cousins) who were born within a month of her. My brother and his wife welcomed their first baby--a girl--on August 24th. Zara followed a week later on August 31st and my sister had her third child--her second boy--on September 21st. (And my other sister just announced that she's expecting her second next year.) So for Christmas this year I decided to make everyone a diaper and wipes case. I used a tutorial from Make It and Love It, one of my favorite crafty sites. It's not the best tutorial, but now that I've made so many of these things, I can whip them out in under an hour. I love quick and easy projects that can be finished in a day.

These don't use a lot of fabric so they're a simple project to do with your scraps or other fun fabrics that you're not quite sure what to do with yet. I made the one on the right side for myself. I just couldn't help myself.

The insides. I actually started working on these quite some time ago (I did the one in the center during the summer) but I had just never finished them. But I was motivated after our last meeting, and so I finished them all last week and they've now been mailed off to their intended recipients.

Well, I had so much fun finishing that project (finally!) that I decided I wanted to do another quick and easy project. And since I've got this really adorable little baby now, who's suddenly very interested in grabbing and holding onto things and shoving them into her mouth, I wanted to do some simple toys she could play with.

So I turned to Make It and Love It once again and found tutorials for cloth blocks and cloth teething rings.

I made 6 inch, 5 inch, 4 inch, and 3 inch blocks using lots of fun, vibrant fabrics. The 3 and 4 inch blocks are easier for Zara to hold and play with now.

Here she is with her 3-inch block clutched tightly in her hands on its way to her mouth. Next up, the cloth baby rings. These were another pretty quick project, but I think I stuffed them with just a little too much fabric because they were kinda a pain to sew together.

Luckily, black fabric hides a multitude of sins.


And Zara certainly doesn't seem to mind my less-than-perfect sewing projects.

She's just that awesome. Also, she really will stick anything into her mouth. At least these are easy to wash.