Burda #9489

My girls are getting old enough (12 and 9 yrs) that they want regular skirts—not just pull on elastic-waist ones. Do you know how hard it is to find fitted skirts with zippers for girls? They’re still too small to use women’s patterns so I’m left searching the big girl’s patterns. Trust me, they are few and far between. If I was a pattern drafter, I could make a lot of money by designing patterns for tweens. I hate that word “tween” but it is really is the easiest way to describe this  middle age for girls—too young for teens/women, too big for girls. Thankfully Burda has a tiny handful of patterns for tweens.

Like most Burda patterns, it is well drafted and the directions are easy to follow. I followed the directions for the yellow skirt but didn’t even need them once I made the black polka-dot version. I love that this skirt has a yoke and belt loops. The gathers make it nice and full since the pattern is meant for lightweight fabrics. I used 100% quilting-weight cottons.

On the above skirt you can see that I eliminated the pocket trim which is purely decorative. The below skirt has a gray linen for the pocket trim. I used stitch #412 on my sewing machine, Bernina 830, to trim the gray linen. I think it looks like flying butterflies. So cute.

The one thing I need to figure out is why once I install the zipper the yoke left and right do not match up anymore, as seen in the below photo. Drives me crazy.

I did lengthen the skirts considerably. About 3”. I made both girls a size 12. I would also add that if you make this skirt wrap the yoke around your daughter before you sew it on because it might be too small if your daughter isn’t a skinny little stick. I’m glad I did this because I ended up cutting a wider yoke for the black skirt. My two girls have completely different body types. It was an easy fix to cut a wider yoke—didn’t affect the skirt at all—just gather a little less to accommodate the wider yoke.

All in all I loved this pattern and will use it over and over for the next several years with my girls.

By the way, the ties are just scarves from my closet—I need to buy them some belts now! And their adorable button-down shirts are from Lands End.

Chevron Knit Skirt

I am so grateful to the blogger who left a comment on one of my posts about the amazing knits at GirlCharlee.com. I’ve never seen a better selection of modern knits for the grown women like me as well as cute stuff for girls. Trendy stuff indeed.  I purchased several varieties and can’t wait to use them all up. Soon, very soon. Here’s my first project with this black/white knit.

Just start with  any a-line elastic waist skirt pattern meant to be cut on the bias, like Simplicity 2186. I used a pattern older than mud from my stash—Butterick 5431. I guess technically it doesn't have to be a pattern specifically for bias cuts, but it helps because the 45 degree angle is already marked on the pattern piece.

Most bias-cut skirt patterns give you the full piece for the front and a full piece for the back. (You can’t cut on the fold when cutting anything on the bias.) However, to make the chevron design in the front you will need to cut the pattern piece down the middle. Luckily, my pattern had an easy line down the center on which I cut. Then you need to cut out 4 identical pieces of your skirt on a perfect 45 degree angle. And I do mean identical. Everything has to match—all the stripes.

To make this easier I cut out my first piece with the tissue pattern, then flipped that cut piece facedown  to make a mirror image on the fabric, matching up the stripes again, as seen below. You might need to subtly manipulate (lightly stretch) the fabric to get it match up perfectly. Pin like crazy where you’ll be seaming the front sections. Cut out. Repeat this process for the back.

If you have a walking foot, now is the time to use it so that your perfectly matched and perfectly pinned stripes will sew perfectly.

I used a straight stitch, then went over that line on my serger. After you make your front and back sections, sew the sides, matching the stripes again, insert an elastic waistband and hem the skirt. I found this great tutorial on hemming knits. You use steam-a-seam to iron the hem in place and then sew the seam. What I love about this is that it gives a little bit of structure to the knit so that you don’t have any popped seams. I have no idea why sometimes knits will ‘skip’ a stitch when sewing. But the steam-a-seam helped to stabilize the seam. Sold on that technique.

Voila! 30 minutes of sewing, 30 minutes of cutting, and you have a trendy chevron skirt for $10. I really don’t know how girlcharlee.com can sell this knit for only $5/yd. Amazing. I am so happy to have been led to that website.

The A-Line Skirt

For 8 years now I have had a love affair with the a-line skirt. A-line skirts flatter every body and can be made in as little as 1 hour and only require around 1 yard of 60” wide fabric. I don’t think I own a single store-bought skirt anymore. (Well, that’s not true. I can think of two store-bought skirts I own.) For years I have been using McCall’s 3341. And as you can see, it’s time to trace it onto some muslin as the pattern is literally falling apart at the darts.

The only adjustment I make is lengthening the pattern to fit my 5 foot 10 inch frame. You can see above where I slashed the pattern and added 2” inches of length. I am a size 10 but in patterns that means a 14 which is never great for a woman’s self-esteem to have to make a skirt 2 sizes larger than she really is. What would it be like to be petite and cute and not a large amazon woman? I’ve never known. I do like being tall but in terms of sewing, it’s not so fun. I always have to buy more fabric than the pattern specifies so that I can lengthen the skirt.

Actually, one other adjustment I make is that I eliminate the back centere seam as I prefer to have a side zipper instead of a centered back one. Unless I am adding a slit, which I never do with this pattern as I only ever make the knee length version.

And I hate the facings used 99% of the time with patterns. So I usually use 2-inch binding cut on the cross grain (not bias) of the fabric to finish the waist. I will bind any edge on skirts, blouses, t-shirts, and quilts. Binding is sooo fun and lovely looking. (Cutting your binding 2" inches yields a 1/2” binding.) Tutorial for bias binding on Children’s Corner website, click here.

And here you can see how lazy I was and used a cream-colored zipper instead of a gray one since I had no gray invisible zips on hand. But since it is invisible no one will see it, right?

I used these luscious linens from fabrics-store.com. I used the 8oz softened gray and a purple linen for the trim. The circles are from my new embroidery designs simply called “Scribbled Circles”.

And to finish it off I used stitch number 418 on the Bernina 830 to sew the hem. I think I found a new favorite decorative stitch.  It’s not too frilly, ya know? It just adds a shot of the lovely burnt orange color.

Don’t I look goofy happy in my new $10 skirt all ready for church?

The Rosie Skirt

I bought the book Design Your Own Clothes by Cal Patch last year. After pouring over it I knew I loved it and wanted to try lots of patterns in this book for myself and my girls. My oldest daughter is now 10 years old and it getting difficult to find age-appropriate sewing patterns for her. There are plenty of patterns for toddlers and teens with curves, but what about this in-between-phase of adolescence?

I don’t have a huge desire to make patterns from scratch but I figure I can alter basic a-line skirts and ‘shell’ blouses to accommodate the styles I saw and loved in this book. And when I saw The Rosie Skirt I new I had to make it for my daughter first, and then maybe for myself. Love the pockets and the side-button closure. Yum.

I used a lightweight 100% cotton denim from Jo-Ann. I love to keep yards and yards of this stuff on hand, washed, and ready to go for sewing projects—skirts, shorts and capris, handbags, you name it.

A few things I learned—I wished I hadn’t skipped the darts. I figured only women with curves needed darts. Well, the darts add shape and it was a mistake to eliminate them. Luckily, my 10-yr old didn’t seem to mind too much.

I bound the pockets with a limey-green polka dot fabric and love how they turned out.

Now what I didn’t love was the bad directions for making the button closure:

The directions for making that overlap are dubious at best. A few steps have gotta be missing. There is no mention of how to finish the front part—the section with those buttonholes. No lining is mentioned, no overlap, no interfacing, nothing. I had to call my brilliant friend Elaine over to help me figure that part out. She agreed that the editor definitely missed something in proof-reading the book. So we basically made another facing for the front button-holed section. Here’s how it looks on the inside:

And I finished it off with this gorgeous feather (or are they ferns?) decorative stitch #110 on the Bernina 830:

I will be making this again and again for my girls. And hopefully one for myself as well.

On a side note………..These are the shorts are made for the girls last year with this same denim. (Actually, I think this denim is a bit darker. Love!) I used designs from the Paisley Pack by OESD. Best purchase ever.

Three-Tiered Girls Skirts

I wrote this post last year about how to make summer skirts for a girl (or for you). Well, here is my updated post with a bit more direction.
These measurements will make a skirt approximately size 6-8 for a 23” waist. Finished length will be 18”. To make a different size, see my original post.
You will need 3/4” yard of fabric.

• Top layer: Cut fabric strip 8”x34”
• Middle Layer: Cut fabric strip 7”x51” (obviously you’ll have to piece this to get 51” since fabric is only 44”wide)
• Bottom layer: Cut fabric strip 7” x 77-86” Pieced like the middle layer. I like to keep this layer anywhere from 77”-86” because it’s easier to cut off excess after you’ve gathered it.

If you have the Bernina Ruffler Foot, set the foot to “6” with a stitch length of 2.2. This should gather your 51” middle layer to nearly exactly match your top layer which is 34”.  Attach the middle layer to the top layer, right sides together, duh. Repeat to gather the bottom layer, then attach to the middle layer, cutting off any excess of the bottom layer. Serge or zig zag over all raw edges of your now gathered layer seams. Sew side shut. Make a 1” inch casing at the top and feed elastic through. Hem 1” for the bottom.
Total time to make this skirt? 45 minutes (using ruffler)
No ruffle foot? Gather by hand and start swearing because it will take a couple of hours at least. Gag me with a wooden spoon, because I hate making gathers with long basting stitches. At the very least, gather by sewing a zig zag stitch over a piece of heavy thread or dental floss, then pull the floss to gather. Still a pain though.

Summer Skirts

I was inspired by my friend and fellow etsy seller Candy to make my daughters a couple of adorable Easter skirts a few months back. And since I just can’t seem to be bothered with patterns these days I figured these were a good project that would actually get done. Well, I’ve since made 7 more and with the addition of my new ruffler foot (which I swear looks like something invented during the industrial revolution) I can make these in about 45 minutes now. I will never ever gather anything with two rows of basting stitches again. (Or with the zig-zag over the dental floss trick.) Never because I’d rather have a root canal.
Here’s my formula to make these skirts without a pattern. As if you even need the formula.
Three layered skirt: Measure your daughter’s waist and multiply by 2.  My girls have the same waist of 21”. So I cut a strip of fabric 42”. (If you are brave enough to make a skirt without a pattern I assume you can figure out how long to make each layer.) For the middle layer multiply the width of the first layer (42”) by 1.5”. So that’s how wide the second layer is cut, 63”. For the third layer multiply 63”x1.5. You get the picture. (For the skirt on the bottom left I used my pinking blade so I could leave the raw edges showing. Loved it!)
 
  For the two layer skirt I think it turns out better to double the width of the first layer for the one ruffle. So again, for a 21” waist cut your first layer 42” wide and the second layer 82” wide.  I’m thinking I need to make myself one out of an irish handkerchief-weight linen or gauze-y cotton.  Hallie would rather wear a skirt anyday so I think I’ll make her a couple more. Nothing is better than summer. Nothing.