Coral Ruffles & Patches

Yay! I finally finished this charm pack patchwork skirt! Not that it was a time consuming project or anything. It just sat on the back burner for-ev-er after I started it a few weeks ago. I'm happy to say that now, thanks to my lack of swimsuit sewing supplies, I am back on track with sewing DD's Summer wardrobe. I have a series of coral tops and coordinating skirts that I am sewing up, so I should have a lot to show this week!

Fabric: Summer in the City by Urban Chiks charm pack. I used a total of 38 squares of 5" x 5" fabric (the charm pack comes with 40). The tank top is a cotton/lycra blend jersey I've had in my stash forever, so I don't remember where I originally ordered it from (oops!).

Patterns: No pattern for the skirt. I used similar methods as the Hopskotch strip skirt from this post. The tank top is the Brooklyn Tank Top pattern from the new Farbenmix book, Sewing Clothes Kids Love.

I plan to do another charm pack skirt and make a tutorial, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, here's the short version:

-I used 1/4" seam allowances and did 3 tiers of patchwork strips.

-Tier 1: 8 squares, Tier 2: 12 squares, Tier 3: 18 squares.

-I hemmed the bottom tier with a verrrry narrow hem.

-Starting with the bottom tier, I gathered each tier to the one above it at a 1:1.5 ratio.

-I then added a waistband that drops down about about 1.5" inches below the elastic.


Oh! I forgot to talk about the ruffles. I gathered 2" strips of fabric with a long sewing machine stitch. I then placed them where they looked good and sewed them down the center with a straight stitch. I love the girly look!

This is the first time I've done this much binding with my coverstitch. It's not perfect, but I think it came out decent. Incidentally, you can use a twin needle for a similar look on bindings. I did that for ages before my lovely DH bought me a coverstitch machine.

I folded the tie ends under twice, then stitched them down with my sewing machine. I discovered this genius idea to put tear away stabilizer underneath when I'm stitching bar tacks like this. The feed dogs looooove it and move the bulkiness right along. Did I mention how proud of myself I am for figuring this idea out??! I mean...you can use stabilizer to stabilize your fabric when your sewing machine wants to suck it down into the plate? Really! :p~

The skirt is not super duper full, but it's swingy enough. I really wanted to get away with just one charm pack, so that's why I used the 1:1.5 ratio.

I serged the seams, then topstitched them. For the hem, I serged the raw edge, then placed this vintage lace over the serging. So I guess it's not technically an actual hem. But, I didn't want the proportion of the squares to be off if I used a larger hem, so this was my solution of how to make my hem only use up 1/4". Oh, and the lace was a lovely garage sale gift from my sister. See, if everyone knows you are bat___ crazy about sewing, sooner or later they will gift you with random sewing crap they happen upon. In the words of Napolean Dynamite: Yessssss!

The waistband has a lil' bit of a yoke. I didn't really want it to show underneath the top, so I didn't want it to drop down very far. I cut it 3.5" wide by 27" long, and used 1" elastic. You know, I should really do an elastic waistband tutorial one of these days. And the list piles up!

Must be able to find the back of the skirt with leftover bias tape.

Ahh, ruffles.
The length was sort of out of my control, since the squares are 5" x 5", and I insisted on 3 tiers. As it turns out, I am kind of digging the whole hippie length.

Modern hippies require retro hair clips.

She loves it! More to come, soon!