A New Skirt

Today I had an itch to sew Julia a skirt.  Her closet is woefully empty.  I should take a picture!  I'm the worst mom in the world because my daughter has so few clothes.

Well, I got online and looked up skirts from fat quarters.  I have a million fat eighths, which work nicely for little girls.  So I looked all about and found some great ideas.  Then I went and made something up out of my head.  And I think I'm tired of gathers.  Maybe a few gathers, but it really makes things too bunchy.  So I'm going to experiment with that some more.  I didn't actually gather this skirt, I let the elastic do the gathering, but either way: too much!

For today:
I sewed 8 fat eighths together, then backed them up to a piece of muslin.  When I do this again, the muslin will be a teeny bit shorter than the skirt fabric, so that it rolls under nicely to avoid showing the muslin.  Right now, I'm just counting on a decent ironing job to keep things in check.

I left the sides open, and sewed the muslin to the front fabric at the top and bottom.  Turned it right side out, ironed it, then sewed a casing for the elastic.  Popped the elastic in, measured it on Julia, then sewed up the back seam!  Oh yeah, before I put in the elastic, I ran some eyelet ribbon across the lower half of the skirt for cuteness.  Looks better than blanket binding!

Note on the previous blanket skirt: Julia was visiting with a lady who expressed surprise that the skirt was not a blanket but was indeed made that way "on purpose"!  

Here, I had sewn the fat eighths together and then a piece of muslin for the lining.

Forgive the bruise, not sure how it got there.

 I turned the fabric right side out, ironed it flat, NO HEM!!!!  

Stitched some ribbon on for good measure.

 Up close of a me and Julia's favorite fabrics.

She likes the dark one with curlies, I like the one on the left.

 Julia models this for me.

Notice how all seams: side, hem and waistband are HIDDEN!

Except the one seam in the back where I sewed the skirt together.

 Only complaint is bunchiness.  Gotta slim it down up top, but then it's harder to line.

I felt that lining was necessary for two reasons:

fabric is kinda see-thru; she'll want to wear it this winter

Bit of a twirly girl!

Not super twirly, but enough for fun.  And generous enough for running about.

I think I might try an A-line skirt, found a fat quarter wrap skirt that looks SOO GOOD!  I'll see how easy I can make it on myself....