Saturday, July 21, 2012

Knit version of skirt like shorts.

In the beginning of this week Justine from Sew Country Chick and I shared this monster post about making reversible skirt like shorts. She posted PART ONE and I posted PART TWO
I did also make them in a non-reversible knit version and those are the ones Evelyn are showing below. By the way I found the key to take photos of her....a handful of small vanilla cookies (kids are so much like dogs!).



Unless anything else is stated I sewed these the same way as the woven ones except I used my serger/overlocker of course.
  The original GAP shorts are made in a woven material but when I looked in my fabric closet and saw this thin and very soft knitted jersey that I just love I knew they would be cool in that print. I used a very very thin jersey as lining and used the same pattern to cut inner and outer fabric. BUT after cutting I did shorten the length of the lining's legs with 1 cm / 0.4 in to avoid it hanging out in the finished result.  

In the woven ones I made three casings for three rows of fairly narrow elastics. Because I want to avoid stitching in knit as much as possible (since I don't have a cover lock machine) I made only one wider casing for a 2 cm / 0.8 in wide elastic by using the 3-stitch zig zag. The 3-stitch zig zag gives an elastic seam.


Wait, what is that.....a bird? a plane?


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Monday, July 16, 2012

Tutorial to reversible skirt like shorts, Part two.

Soooo if you read the headline and noticed 'part two' you might wonder what happened to part one....because of course do you not miss any posts on this blog, right!
 Well today we are doing things a little bit different. The cool Justine from Sew Country Chick has lend me her blog for a post's time and she is posting part one. So you have to head over to her lovely blog (click HERE) to get the pattern drafting part and more photos.
And if you are coming from Sew Country Chick and is now ready for part two....welcome!

I have had my eyes on those two fabrics since I a while ago noticed (in my fabric stash) that they are matching perfectly in the colors but the prints are obviously completely different. To me that requires the perfect idea so that it is not going to end up looking like something a first year design student has made....you know like an idea that seemed good....when it was an idea......but ends up looking totally crazy and not really working in real life. (I am sorry if I am offending someone but I think everyone with designer aspiration has been through the process of making ridiculous clothes and over time learned to contain ourselves).
Okay back to the subject....so to me using these two color matching fabric in these reversible skirt like shorts were perfect. Especially because the inner fabric would be visible with movement....and if there is something we can be sure of it is that kids move! 

Even though she did stand pretty still for these shots, thanks my love.

A super simple tutorial to the sewing of these shorts:
Sew side seams and inner leg seams together. Iron. (both fabrics)
Sew crotch seams. Iron. (both fabrics)
Sew the two shorts together in the waist. Iron.
Stitch the waist to make three casings for elastics. (See photo above) 

Measure and cut three pieces of elastic that fits your child and start by pulling elastic through the top casing, sew together the elastic (see photo below) and close the first casing with a stitch (see photo above). Continue with middle casing and finish with the lowest casing.

It is a little bit hard to see in this photo but I use 1 cm in each end of the elastic for seam allowance. Instead of sewing them together like I would with fabric I overlap the ends with 2 cm and use a zig zag to sew those 2 cm together.

Now you have to open a seam somewhere in the shorts so you can sew the two fabrics together in the bottom of the shorts legs. The reason why I did not just leave a hole open when I sewed the seams in the first place is that it is easier to hand sew together afterwards when it has already been sewn and ironed.
Because these shorts are reversible it is a bit tricky to open a seam because you need all seams to be perfect looking...and I don't know about your hand sewing but I know mine is usually not as pretty as the one my sewing machine does.
I decided that low on the back crotch seam would be the least visible place and now you can easily sew the two different fabrics together in the legs, iron and hand sew with your nicest and most invisible stitches the hole in the back crotch seam together again and after you have given the shorts a nice over all ironing you are done. Yay!


Last a little tip for sewing seams together where e.g. stripes has to match. I use 1 cm as sewing allowance and I therefore bend the top layer of fabric in the sewing line (1 cm in) and slide it up or down to match the stripe on the lower piece of fabric again in the sewing line 1 cm in on the fabric. As you can see on this photo above I had not been completely precise in my cutting and I had to slide the top layer like 2 mm down to make it match.


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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Skirts for Skirting the Issue

I have made these two cotton skirts, both size 3-4T to donate to girls in foster care. I hope they are going to make two little girls, who have not had the easy carefree life any child deserves, a little bit more happy!


This is part of Skirting the Issue - a great great initiative from the women behind the blogs Project Run & Play and Simple Simon & Co.

Click on the button below and read more:

Project Run and Play

Friday, July 6, 2012

Mini jersey dress

Making a 'well known' (at least to me) model into a mini baby version is always fun. I made this dress to my two year old a couple of months ago (you can see it HERE in my very first post on this blog) and when my sister saw that she promptly ordered - no wait she said she REALLY wished for one for her at that time new born daughter. And there is nothing a proud aunt would rather do than to make something for her first niece (I also have a nephew but I don't think he would look good in this dress). That dress was sent to Denmark before I was even thinking I should have taken a photo of it. Soooo when a friend here in the neighborhood recently had a girl I got another chance and here you see it. I hope she is too busy with the baby to check my blog because she has actually not received it yet.
I realize now that I see this photo that this was one of those thing that should have had a box of matches, a pencil or some other well known sized thing to compare the size of this dress to because it is actually smaller than it appears in the photo. I would say it is a size 3-6 months.
Let's hope the Mommy likes it....I am pretty sure the baby could not care less.

Oh, I have an update...The Mom has now gotten the dress and loves it AND so does the baby.....which I should have known since she comes from a truly wonderful family.


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Monday, July 2, 2012

Skirting the Issue.

Okay I just have to tell you about this great project that I want as many people as possible to know about. The blog Simple Simon & Co is behind this project that almost makes me cry thinking about it....getting people to sew and donate skirts for girls in foster care. I mean if there is any children who deserves any kind of pampering that would be the ones, right!
Jump right over to their blog and read all about it, please!

Simple Simon and Co

And if you are new to sewing but would like to help I just want to remind you of this very easy skirt incl. full tutorial that I posted a little while back. Click on the photo and you will be taken straight to the post (told you I was going to learn some things along the way, yay!)


Thank you!