I did end up getting a few more dresses sewn up, so I will post my other outfit that I made for Anya last week. No pictures of her in it, yet. I’m sure I will get some this summer, though.
I bought some chiffon knit on fabric.com to sew up some cute little skirts for the girl…or me. One of the two. 😉 Anya had liked this skirt, so I decided to tackle it with some chiffon knit. She also had a similar skirt that I bought her last year at Costco. I used that as my template.
Chiffon knit is NOT the same as regular chiffon. I have some regular chiffon for a fancy dress for her and it is slippery and I know it will be super fun to work with (i.e. super fun = not fun at all).
The chiffon knit wasn’t all that difficult to cut, and since it is a knit synthetic you don’t need to hem all the edges. Score! The construction on it was similar to the construction on this skirt. I used the chiffon knit as the base of the flounces.
- Draw up skirt base pattern and make sure the flounces are the same length of the hemmed based.
- Cut everything out.
- Sew the side seams on the base and hem it.
- Sew the flounces down one side (right sides facing), flip it over and top-stitch it. Do this for all 20-some flounces. (It was tedious, but the results are rather cute!)
- Hem the lining skirt.
- Sew up the bike shorts and hem.
- Attach all pieces together at the waistband. I used the bike short fabric for the waist piece. I sewed the elastic in the channel and attached everything together on the sewing machine and then serged the edge. It was a bit tough wrangling everything together, so be patient to get it right. Make sure the flounces aren’t caught in the seam.
I lined it with some pink swimsuit fabric since I didn’t have a nylon lycra knit that matched. It was a b*tch to sew with, so I’m not sure it will be a swimsuit. My machine didn’t like it and was skipping stitches. I was going to make a ruffled up swimsuit that she wanted, but if my machine can’t sew a few simple lines then that is not going to work. I’ll have to pick up a different fabric for her swimsuit.
I made sure to put bike shorts underneath it, so it is monkey-bar friendly.
The top is made of the same fabric as the bike shorts. I sewed a bunch of flounces down the front and in the arm-hole binding.
A cute little outfit!
INCREDIBLY cute!!!! Great job! I wouldn’t have bothered with the stitched in bike shorts, I would have made her wear some underneath. You are such a cooooool mum!!!!
That outfit is adorable. You are so ahead of the game. I can’t believe you are already sewing for the summer.
So, as “super fun” as that was to sew – it looks really amazing. I love how you say “monkey bar friendly” because I TOTALLY get it!
oh my – that is cuteness! i know a little girl who would ADORE that outfit!!