Knit Skirts - Mommy and Daughter

I am SO behind on posting stuff to this blog.  It's not that I haven't been crafting or cooking stuff, it's just that I've been too busy to post about them.  I'm going to make an attempt to catch up over the next week or two.

First on the list is a pair of skirts I made out of the knit fabric I bought awhile back.  Addison gave her first talk in church about 5 weeks ago and I wanted to make sure she had something new and fun to wear for it.  So I made her this little skirt and then decided to make one for myself too.  I desperately need more skirts, and this was SO simple to make, so it was fun to do the whole "mommy daughter matchy" thing for once.  I actually think this may be the first time I've ever matched clothes with her!  And I don't care if it's cheesy, cause I loved it and she loved it and it was perfect.

The waistband didn't turn out perfect, but you honestly can't see it when you have a cute shirt over it.

And here are a few pictures of the two of us in our skirts later that day.  I'm sad we didn't think to take one right after church, but oh well.  This first one is mostly a cute picture of Austin, but you can kinda see Addison and I on the side. :o)

I will most likely be making more of these as summer approaches.  They are perfect for hot weather and the most comfy thing I own.  And I'll just go ahead and keep making matchy ones for Addison while I'm at it. :o)

Girl Skirt WITHOUT an Elastic Waistband

I was at it again today, testing out my skills with gathering and knit.  Today went quite a bit better for a couple reasons.  First, I was only using knit for half of the project and second, the tutorial I used was brilliant.  Somehow I stumbled upon The Mother Huddle blog and found this tutorial for a no elastic waistband skirt.  It's such a great idea so I had to try it out.

It just so happens that I have been dejunking and reorganizing the kids bedrooms this week and had a huge pile of clothes that were too small and needed to be toted up and put in the attic.  After reading through some repurposing blogs today I started too look at this pile of clothes with new eyes.  I pulled out two dresses of Addison's that I knew I could do something with.  I also had a huge bag of my clothes that I was ready to take to Good Will that I pulled back out of the car and rummaged through with this great tutorial in mind. 

I'm so glad I did a "second take" with these clothes.  So many new possibilities!  So many cute ideas floating around in my chaotic little head!  And here is the result of today's adventures.

 I forgot to take a pic of the dress before I cut the top off, but you get the idea from this picture.  

I gathered the top of the new skirt piece and then cut the bottom off of my old stretchy knit shirt.

I measured Addison's waist and sewed the new waist piece to fit.  I had to do this step twice.  The first time I made it too big so I cut it up again and resewed it.  Better too big than too small, right?

Sew the two pieces together and TA DA!  It's such a great skirt because the waist band is super stretchy and will allow her to wear it for a long time.  Maybe a piece of clothing will actually last longer that one season for her!  WOW, what a concept.

(STUPID BLOGGER keeps turning this photo on its side and I can't get it up and down. ARG!)

Now I need to refocus myself on some boy clothes.  I could tell Ethan was feeling a little left out today when I gave Addison yet another skirt.  Time to use my cute new knit fabrics to make some boy pants!

Knit Fabrics and a Play Dress

My very large order of knit fabrics from Chez Ami arrived a few days ago.  I was drooling over every one of them and had to take a picture for posterity.  Aren't they so shiny and pretty!? :)

After washing them all up I got right to work making Addison a upcycled play dress using a stained white shirt and this tutorial from Ruffles And Stuff.  This is another favorite craft/sewing blog that I frequent and my list of to do projects from her site is growing out of control.  My version of the dress definitely didn't take 15 minutes, but it wasn't too bad and I was able to finish it in a couple hours.  I learned from this project that I've got a long way to go before I'm comfortable with making a ruffle and before I'm used to sewing with knit/stretchy fabrics.  It's just a matter of lots of practice, like everything else!

This dress is definitely just for playing around the house.  It's got an uneven and unhemmed bottom edge and the seam where I added the knit fabric doesn't lay down very well.  Plus the white shirt I cropped off to make this dress was a bit stretched out around the mid section, so it makes the dress a lot more "full" than I'd normally like.  But hey, she loved it and won't take it off at the moment, so that's what counts!

Onto the next project with my fab-tab-ulous new fabrics!  Wahoo!

Jean Skirt for Addison

I have a goal to re-purpose all of the clothes that no longer fit me into something else.  I've got a tote full of shirts, skirts, sweaters and other odds and ends that I have grand ideas for.  Thanks to the countless blogs out there that have tutorials for this very purpose, I've already made several "new" things.  I plan to post about each of them in time.

One of the items I really wanted to repurpose was a jean skirt of mine that had a busted zipper.  Fixing the zipper would have been next to impossible (for me), so I decided to make it into a skirt for Addison.  Without any pattern or tutorial to go from, I was flying solo for the first time.  It was a bit nerve-racking, and I had a couple of bumps along the way, but I am so excited about how the final product turned out.

I left the skirt out on the couch last night, right where I knew Addison would see it in the morning and sure enough, she came bounding upstairs this morning, already wearing it over her PJ's and told me that she loved it.  What better reward can a Mom ask for?

 The jean material is really soft and has some stretch to it.  I did a simple elastic waist and made the length of the skirt to hit just above her ankles.

  

I made a flower pattern out of paper and then pinned and cut 3 flowers and three circles out of some left over jean material.  I zigzag stitched the flower on with the wrong side out and the circle with the right side out to give it some contrast and then hand sewed a pink ball bead to the center. Super cute in my opinion!