Limbs and head flopped out to sleep. Looking d-e-d.Filed under: Gifted it, Love it, Made it, Sewed it | Tags: Christmas, Gaffney's, net, pink, skirt, tulle, tutorial, tutu, twirly
While picking out fabric for her Christmas dress, the twirliest girl I know wanted a tutu, and how do you say no to that?
So together we bought 4 yards of hot pink net. She wanted the thing to stick straight out, prompting a lady at Gaffney’s I’ve feared since high school to give me the business about making it Stick. Straight. Out.
So I started with a funny free tutorial (sorry, it was free in October) about making filled tutus, which my SIL says are all the rage in South Jersey where they live. It made you fold the folded net or tulle once more, for four layers of stuff. A lady friend I work with came over and made one too, in a peachy shimmery tulle for her niece.
Mine was good… but not pokey enough. The skirt definitely drooped. So I doubled the fold again, making the 72″ wide net into eight layers of 9 inch net. and jammed heart-shaped sequins in one of the folded layers.
Perfect.
Which of course made me think, what if you made the top layer fabric so it looks like a skirt w built-in crinoline? Like a zebra skirt with purple or red underneath? How would that math work out? Stay tuned to find out.
Filed under: Fixed it, Gifted it, How to do it, Made it, Sewed it | Tags: gather, gathered, how to, skirt, tier, tiered, tutorial, twirl
The bodice is done, the button and loop attached, now the top of the Rooster’s skirt needs to be 25″, which is the circumference of the bodice’s edge. I’m going for as many tiers as I can stand to gather. So at least four and maybe even five. Yep, in the end it was five.
Using the old 3 Peas tutorial (c/o Kuky), my top loop of fabric needs to be 39″ total, gathered to fit the 25″ bodice. Since my fabric’s 60 wide, I’m using one 39″ wide strip. Each subsequent tier is made from strips that are 1.5 times the width of the tier above it. Kuky tells you how to do the math and cut out all the pieces.
But then it occurred to me, two tiers in, that instead of cutting all these chunks, since I’m using the same fabric all the way down, I could make a long strip 5.25 inches deep of my 59″ wide fabric. I could join the 59″ lengths then measure and cut 1.5 times each round.
Now so can you.
1. Start at the bodice, or your child’s waist (plus 2-3) and multiply out 1.5 for each tier.
2. Divide a measurement between the waist and knee by as many layers as you’d like, and then add 3″ to the top one for a waistband.)
So I need 39 x 1.5 or 58.5″ for the second tier.
88″ for the third.
132″ for the fourth.
198″ whopping inches for the fifth. That’s a lot of gathering.
3. Sew the strips together and then into loops. Finish the seam allowances as you will. I did Hong King finishes on the seams binding the strips together, now that I’m a giant fan.
4. Start assembling from the top down. If you’re attaching the skirt to a bodice, do it now. If it’s a freestanding skirt, fold over 1.5 inches for the top, and stitch, leaving a small hole about 2 inches wide to fish through elastic or a ribbon drawstring.
5. Take the next biggest loop and prepare it for gathering. I like to drop in a couple of straight stitches at the end of the loop, raise the presser foot, and pull the threads long back to the start. Now set the machine to a wide, long zig zag, and stitch the zigzags over the pulled threads.
6. Divide each loop into quarters, marking each fourth with a pin. Match up the pins and gather the bigger loop to fit. Pin in place, then stitch. Work your way to the bottom.
7. BUT before you attach the bottom loop, hem it. I used a length of satin ribbon as a hem binding on the bottom tier BEFORE gathering it. Dang, that took forever, both the hem and the last gather.
It is in fact the twirliest skirt.
But I don’t know how to finish the gathered seams inside the unlined skirt.
Help!
Filed under: Fixed it, Gifted it, Sewed it | Tags: binding, button, dress, Hong Kong finish, skirt, tiered, tutorial, twirl
The top of the twirliest, pinkest Christmas dress is done! According to pattern, too.
Look at those bound seams. Topstitching. Pintucks. Mmm hmm. I went nice and slow, with only the pressure last weekend of finishing the top. Now to add a twirly twirly skirt, with help from this tutorial.
And a button from the old button box.
I wanted to use a stray, if there was a good one, instead of breaking up a set. Here’s the stray bag emptied out onto the little bodice.
And the finalists. I think the little red one with the eye on the back’s going to win. Though the orange on with the circles makes me want to start something it could go on.
Filed under: Gifted it, Sewed it | Tags: Christmas, corduroy, cotton, dress, fabric, Gaffney's, niece, pink
Sigh. The reason I started selling clothes online at all was precisely to sell off all the pink vintage clothing I found. Stuff that was so beautiful, but pink. No sir, I don’t like it.
So of course, my niece, whose Christmas dress I make every year, chose p-i-n-k this time. In my favorite fabric store ever, during our special trip, just girls, she swept past teal velour, purple velvet, silvery knit and plunked her finger squarely on a hot pink baby corduroy.
With glitter, see?.
Efforts to push the dusty rose (and gray) taffeta were promptly denied.
So this dress will be hot pink. And super twirly.
Since Gaffney’s is amazing, I grabbed up out of the quarter bin (not the yardage, the price) a chunk of this cotton that might make the bindings.
Close enough? I know it hardly screams “holiday”. But neither does pink.
Filed under: Fixed it, Gifted it, Love it, Sewed it | Tags: Christmas, dress, pattern, present, tiers, tutorial, twirl
The same little girl who got these dresses for her and her mom gets a custom Christmas dress every year made by her faraway aunt. I figure if I can’t spend time with her, I’ll spend time on her. And twirly dresses are super fun. Best part of all: We’ll get to take a trip to Gaffney’s together next weekend where she’ll get to pick whatever fabric she wants.
Kiddo wants something like this, the Love To Twirl. In green. I haven’t yet seen an exact pattern, with tiers starting right under your shoulders, but I found these two Simplicity patterns on sale at the JoJo that I think could work. How don’t I already have anything close?
So 2711 is for wovens and 2943 (Project Runway for kids now?!) for knits.
I think the trick’s going to be getting the upper body to fit her, then to chop the bodice high and start adding tiers. This tutorial should come in handy.
