Running With Scissors: April 2012

Womens

Skirt with Pockets and Pleats!

10:37 AM

girls clothing

Purple Plaid Blouse

11:04 AM

girls clothing

Tutorial Variation: Shirred Pocket Skirt for Girls

11:47 AM

Last summer, the original shirred skirt with big pockets was such a huge hit, and it seems the tutorial gets a lot of use making cute, skirts!

Quite a few have left comments saying it was your first time sewing clothing and it turned out great.

So I thought we needed to get an adjustment to make these skirts for little girls too!

Toddler skirts are probably the easiest project to make, and so the pockets and shirred waist add a little zip to an already easy project!

The steps to create smaller girl sized skirts is the exact same as the original tutorial.

So rather than repeat everything, you'll print your girls sized pattern here along with the size cut charts, then refer back to the original adult post for all the steps:

updated 4/27/12 on the cut list for skirts. I had the skirt width totals rather than the two halves, so the link below is the current and correct cut chart

PRINT GIRLS PATTERN HERE

it's only 2 pages and has all the cutting information for sizes 12 months to girls 10!
Then hop over to the

SEWING INSTRUCTIONS HERE
The only change in steps/ directions will be how much shirring you sew.
For these little ones I only sewed 4 or 5 rows of the shirring elastic thread. The larger sizes could probably handle 6-8 rows of shirring.
As far as fabric:
Most light to mid weight fabrics will shirr: quilting cotton, linen, knits, poly blends.
I have found poplin type blends with spandex in them (the fabric often used in women's button up blouses) DO NOT shirr for some reason. I don't know if the slight stretch in the fabric or the fact it's a little more stiff prevents it from gathering but it's the only fabric I've come across that just doesn't work, although I've never tried heavier weight fabrics like canvas, denim, or corduroy, I just assumed they'd be too heavy for the elastic thread.

For small sizes I used 1/2" wise bias tape folded to have finished 1/4" detail on for contrasting pockets with only 1/2 wide bias tape detail along hem.
Adults are 1/2" wide finished on pockets and 1" along hem.

I recently made 10 of these skirts in a range of the sizes for a wedding and they turned out so cute!

Ellie here is wearing 18-24 months and I think she'd be better in the 12 months size for reference.

Hope your spring is filled with little girls sewing!

art & craft

Maurice Moss

4:00 AM

We're Teaching A Sewing Class!

1:55 PM

My little sister Lynette and I are teaming up to teach a free community class:

Clothing Construction for Kids!

Taught by Lynette or Lady Danburry and myself.

Lynette's a professional tailor/ seamstress and I'm her teaching side kick for the night.

WHERE:

Provo City Library

550 N University Ave

Provo, Utah 84601

Young Special Events Room #201

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WHEN:

Tuesday, May 15 at 7pm

It's Free!

You don't need to sign up or register--just show up!

The class is teaching how to use clothing you already own to create basic patterns for constructing your unique, original children's clothing.

This will also include basic pattern drafting and how to alter basic block patterns for new designs.

The class is for beginners who would like to branch out and create their own original designs.

No sewing machines will be present, so we won't actually construct any clothing that night.

The focus of the class is to teach you how to duplicate an existing piece of clothing, or translate your design into a usable, original pattern.

Most likely I'll do the first part showing how to duplicate clothing, and Lynette will go more in depth in creating more unique patterns.

We'll be discussing and using children's clothing as our examples for the class as they're easy--just shaped like cylinders--but principles can be applied for adult clothing as well if you don't sew for kids.

We're preparing the formal class for 30-40 minutes so 7:00 to 7:40pm and after that we're just hanging out.

Our family loves food. Growing up if you came to our house you'd always have to eat something before you could get out of there, so we figured we couldn't host a class without some kind of treat.

We're also preparing a few giveaways/ raffles for you to hopefully win some children's clothing we've made.

Overall we hope it's a casual, fun, and informative night for anyone wanting to sew from scratch in the Provo, Utah area!

*****It's not a blogger event, so don't worry about planning an outfit to include a scarf or needing to whip up a ruffled tote to fit in. Just come and hopefully we'll have something for you to learn and time to chat and hang out if you have specific questions. It's a free community class sponsored by the library and we just thought some of our friends from the blog world in the Utah County area might be interested.

So plan ahead since the lame I-15 construction is torture and hope to see and meet some of you in person!