Tiered Rainbow Skirt

When Joanna picks out fabric for a skirt, her first question is usually "Can you start making it tonight?"  Her next question is usually "Will it be done by tomorrow?"  This was the case with her much anticipated tiered skirt.

The style for this skirt is a combination of Tanya Whelan's Tiered Skirt from 'Sew What You Love' and this blog post from Sew to Speak.  Joanna loved the tiers, but also liked the waistband of the Sew to Speak skirt that we saw on a recent visit to the shoppe.  I was a bit more generous with the widths for each tier - other patterns that I have used from 'Sew What You Love' have seemed a little less gathered than I prefer them to be.

I really love that we alternated the stripe direction for the tiers - I think it works pretty well, and the skirt has an interesting shape/appearance because of it.  The fabric is by Robert Kaufman (I think), and will be perfect for summer.  

And just a side note, Joanna is standing in front of our beloved elementary school for these photos.  Yesterday was her last day, and now she is moving on to bigger and better things (sniffle).

Gypsy-Girl Dress

On Friday, when I said that I would sew my daughter's dress soon, I really did not mean that it would happen over the weekend.  However, my beautiful, lovely girl was being a real grouch about it, so I got started.  And then I got finished.

The things she seems to like about it:

• The ruffle at the top of the bodice front.
• The loose, summery bodice.
• The lovely Amy Butler 'Gypsy Caravan' print
• The stretchy waist.  This was shirred with several rows of elastic thread.

The things that required a bit more thought:

• She wasn't sure how long she wanted the dress to be - I think this length is lovely.  She was undecided, but likes it.
• Next time, she'll probably want the skirt to be more gathered. 

Overall, a success.  It was especially successful considering the fact that I was mostly making it up as I went.  I was going to draft my own pattern pieces, but I decided to use patterns from 'Sew What you Love' and alter them a bit.  I used the child's bodice and midriff pieces.  For the bodice, I extended the pattern a couple inches - the pattern is really designed to be lengthened depending on what is required for the project. Here are a couple bodice close-ups:

Ruffled top - this is probably the part that Joanna was most excited about.

Elastic waist!

For a better fit, I added shirring at the top of the back.  Kind of a racerback effect.

I used elastic thread to attach the bodice ruffle and shirr the top of the back.  This was so important for a good fit.  All of the children's patterns from 'Sew What you Love' require elastic thread, so the pattern pieces are designed for quite a bit of gathering.  This just happened to be perfect for what Joanna wanted.  If I did it again though, I might use one less row of elastic on the back.  Also, it's probably fairly obvious, but perhaps worth mentioning, that I used handmade bias tape instead of sleeves.  To make the bias tape, I used this method.

The midriff pattern was lengthened considerably.  Even though Joanna would have liked it to be fuller, I actually added quite a bit of width to the pattern piece.  For this dress, I just sewed the bodice to the skirt and shirred with elastic thread.  Next time, I'll cut the skirt even wider and gather with a basting stitch before sewing to the bodice.  Then I'll shirr with elastic thread.

The dress that this was modeled on actually had three ruffles at the hem as well, but Joanna wanted me to omit them.  It might be fun to try next time.  Maybe we can make a similar dress with all of the ruffles in a contrasting fabric!

Lots o' Links

It's a well known fact that good aunts need to bring gifts when visiting little baby nephews.  And this aunt likes to make her own gifts.

This toy is yet another pattern from 'Sew What you Love'. (Are you sick of hearing about this book?  I am loving it!)  I was very haphazard with my fabrics, using whatever I happened to find that looked like it could pass for a little boy print.  I'm feeling pretty good about it.  There's some Ikea fabric, Lotta Jansdotter, Cloud9, and I don't know what else - some random fat quarters.

After each piece is stuffed, this pattern does require a bit of hand stitching, which is not my most favorite thing in the world, but it turned out fine.  If I were making this pattern again, I would probably either make the base of the cone a little wider, or make the largest link a little smaller - it seems to want to slip off the bottom a bit.  

As you can see, rather than just being circles for stacking, the pieces can be linked together to make a chain.  I remember that baby Joanna loved toys that could be made into links when she was little, so I'm hoping Arlo will feel the same way.

Really, I just used our trip to Nashville as an excuse to make something new for Arlo - I'm glad I did, but he would have been just as happy with nothing at all.