New Skirts for the Girl!

Little Sister has been wanting to wear skirts and tees lately, and I keep buying fabric with the intention of making skirts for her.  But somehow, they keep getting pushed down the priority list--maybe because I always think of skirts being such a quick and easy project, that I always choose to tackle the bigger things when I've got the time.  But I finally whipped a few out, motivated by finding some new tees on clearance, since I wanted her to have some fun new skirts to wear with them.  And you know what?  They were a quick and easy project, and totally rewarding!

First I made a really basic skirt--just a hemmed rectangle with an elastic casing for the waist--out of a fantastic fabric, and it is so cute!

Yay for new skirts!

 This was leftover from my Washi dress, made from Melody Miller's Rubystar fabric.  The border print is so cool!  This has been one of my favorite Nippori finds to date, at 380 yen per meter (and it's extra wide fabric).

I kept the selvage visible inside the hem, that's how much I love this fabric.

 The thing that took the longest with this skirt was getting the elastic to lay flat inside the casing.  Once I had it straightened out, I stitched the elastic to the top of the casing to keep it from getting twisted in the future (from this Oliver & S tutorial.)

Next, I sewed her a circle skirt. I've been meaning to do this forEVER, as she loves to twirl, and she loves skirts, and...it was just a no-brainer.  I was hesitating a bit because I wasn't looking forward to pressing and hemming all the way around a circle, but once I decided to make the skirt two layers to avoid hemming, I got right to work!

I got the idea from this reversible circle skirt tutorial from You and Mie, but I didn't want to use bias tape for the hem, so I sewed my two layers together around the HEM and left the waistband open.  Then I attached the elastic waistband like in Dana's simple circle skirt tutorial from Made.

Having a dongo snack

One difference though, I added pockets.  And because I'm lazy, I used the skirt lining for the back of my pockets rather than cutting two pocket pieces for each side.

You can sort of see the stitch line where I sewed down the pockets above.

 I wanted the lining to show for the pocket bags, and since the lining fabric was the same on both sides it worked out!

So I am officially on the circle skirt bandwagon now--I love these, and will be making more!  I actually have one planned for my next project RIGHT NOW!  Especially now that I've done all of the circle skirt math--gotta put that to use before she grows and I have to figure out a new waist radius!