Christmas Twirly Skirt

Guess what? It's Christmas season and my kids have nothing festive to wear. And, I did the silliest thing ever: I misplaced my Redondo skirt pattern! I've been searching for it for over a month now and still cannot find it!

Out of desperation, I took one of Libby's skirts from her drawer and used it to trace out a new pattern. At least now I have the size 6 version of the pattern. I would freehand it, but it's hard to get the sizing and the swirls just right.

I scored some funky green and red chevron printed fabric and I paired it with some green and red polka dot. It's going to be so colorful and fun!  It will also double up as a Dr. Seuss skirt in March for his birthday celebration at school. Awesome! Love it when I can get two occasions out of an outfit.

I made one Redondo skirt for my daughter, and one for my Etsy shop. I wish I hadn't run out of the chevron print, but I got the end of the bolt so I know that's all there is to that. I only have half a yard left and that's not enough for another twirly skirt.

Merry Christmas and Happy Twirling!

Birthday Twirly Skirt

A friend of mine, a really sweet generous lady, posted on Facebook that it was her daughter's 6th birthday that day.  I had a hankering to do some sewing and I'm sort of stuck on my current big project, so I thought "what a great opportunity to sew up something quick and cute!"  So, I sewed!

I quickly cut out a Redondo skirt from some Little Mermaid printed fabric and I serged the pieces together.  Next thing you know, the skirt was done!   I set a new personal speed record!  A Redondo skirt in 45 minutes!  Including cutting the 12 pieces, pressing them, and sewing them together. Also put in the elastic waistband in that time!  I hoped it would fit since I just eyeballed the size of it. 

Luckily, any length is in fashion these days, so I never really worry if it's too long or too short, but it must fit in the waist. Elastic waistbands have plenty of sizing wiggle room, but still, it can't be too big or too tight. I don't see my friend and her kids often enough, but her daughter is in between the sizes of my daughters so it wasn't too hard to guess.

This Redondo pattern is from Studio Tantrum.  Totally cute pattern!  It twirls great too!  I don't know how little girls can twirl and twirl all day long, but they do. I'd puke.

We ran the skirt over to the birthday girl and she was thrilled! She loves to twirl, she loves skirts, she loves the Little Mermaid, she loves pink and she loves glitter too! This skirt had it all!  I didn't realize I was scoring on all counts, but hey, cool! 

Thanksgiving Redondo Skirt

I made a Thanksgiving skirt for my daughter. She loves to spin and twirl!  And I saw this Thanksgiving fabric and knew she'd love it. She loves letters and words; this is just her style!

When it's all laid out you can see how the Redondo pattern works.

And it twirls so nicely!

Redondo Twirly Skirt

This skirt is dangerous!  Dangerous if you can't handle being dizzy, that is. I cannot; therefore, I will not wear one. I will not spin and twirl.  My daughter will. She's five; she can do that.

The first time I saw this skirt, an adorable little girl in my daughter's kindergarten class was wearing it. The next time I saw her, she had another one on. Then another. Her mom sews!  I got to know her mom a bit, but I forgot what she said her name was. That's ok, I just call her "The Redondo Mom" because of the skirt. Well, I don't call her that, I just refer to her silently in my mind as the Redondo Mom. Pretty sure she wouldn't answer me if I actually called her that out loud. Yeah, that might not be so cool.

That was 2 years ago. I've been thinking about that skirt ever since. It's that stinking cute! 

Recently, Redondo mom shared the pattern with me. I was so excited! Like, Christmas morning (after coffee) excited! I traced the pattern, all sizes, then traced another one for a friend of mine who has two little twirly girls, and returned the pattern unharmed by my crazy children.  They'd find it and spill something on it for sure.

The skirt consists of three pieces. One is a rectangle, I totally understand that one. It's the waistband. The other two pieces are completely confusing.

I've been sewing for 21 years now. I've seen so many patterns and could most of the time put them together. This one had me completely baffled. The two skirt pieces look like partial snail shells. I held them and tried to figure out how on earth they make a skirt, and how they fit together, which way is up, which end goes where... yeah, I don't know.

I followed the instructions very carefully. Rechecking every time I put things together. It never made sense. I put the curves together even thought it felt like I was making mistakes. They didn't look like they wanted to line up. But, that's what it said to do.

First, I made five swirls, then put those curly panels together and you'll never guess what! It totally made the cute little skirt! Perfect!!! I'm not sure how that happened when it felt so weird. I really need to practice sewing things that have no straight lines. This was a step out of my comfort zone. Which made it especially satisfying! 

Then I tried out the pattern on the largest size pattern. It was so sweet! But it turned out too long for my little spinner. Hmmmm....  Let's try again.

I now knew which end was up, so I shortened that end. I also cut the pieces a wee bit skinnier and made one more for six panels. Then I cut two types of fabric for the panels so they could alternate. Of course, I cut a couple of pieces backwards and had to recut them. I'm learning.  I sewed them together and next thing you know, skirt #2 was done!  Score! It looked a lot better than the first. In fact, it looked good enough to wear.  We gave it to a little girl for her birthday. 

Then, I made a third. This is fun!  Skirt #3 turned out just  as good as the second one and I love it! More than that, the girls love it!  The largest size fits my smallest girl, so I'm going to have to figure out how to expand the pattern for my bigger girl. She likes to twirl too. 

The skirt doesn't take long to sew. Maybe an hour or two at the most. Of course, it takes me longer because I have to keep three kids from taking all my pins out of my pin cushions, cutting up my fabric scraps, running hotwheels under my sewing table (over the pedals) and keeping the Barbies from climbing all over my ironing board. Slows down the sewing a bit.

I cannot wait to make more Redondo skirts! Thank you, Redondo Mom! or whatever your name is.

Spongebob Two-Layer Twirly Skirts

I whipped up two cute ruffled skirts for the girls yesterday.  I can't believe I got them done in one day! That is amazing for me.  I went from finding a cute skirt tutorial online, to picking fabric out of my stash, to cutting, serging and by the end of the day, the girls were twirling around in their new skirts!  What a day!  I'm sure it would only take an hour for a person who has no interruptions, but I expected it to take a few days at least.

The skirts are two-layers.  There is an upper skirt (Spongebob fabric) and an underskirt (solid yellow).  They are sewn together with an elastic waistband, which I managed to sew on upside down on one of the skirts. Oops.  I like that they are two layers, but I'm not thrilled with the waistbands.  I think they are too bunchy and I will have to topstitch them later.  Next time I make the skirts, I will shorten the width of the waistband so that when the elastic pulls it together, it isn't so bunchy.  "Bunchy" is a technical term. It is!

I tried to topstitch the waistbands to flatten them out a bit, but my sewing machine is being rebellious!  It was sewing some really wonky lines of straight stitches that were anything but straight. Eh, I'll deal with that later. I made the skirts on the serger only! That is kind of cool! 

The photos on the blog where I found the instructions to make the pattern and the skirt are much better.  I don't know if those skirts were made of a fabric that lays down better or if my sewing skills just need some work (I'm rusty, I admit it), but my skirts didn't turn out with the same "hang" to them as the skirts on the instructions.  I also cannot see the waistbands on the instructions, I may have done that wrong.

Me? Measure wrong?  Hard to imagine, but it could have happened with the waistbands.  I measured wrong on the ruffles and took me hours to figure out why my ruffles were so much shorter than the width of the skirts.  The ruffles need to be longer in order to ruffle!  The instructions say "For a ruffle take the length of the bottom skirt portion and multiply by 1.5. Divide by 2, and measuring on fold, the width that you just came up with."  Well, I had the lower skirt folded since I just cut it on the fold, and did the math from there, which means I divided by 2 before I even started to figure out how long the ruffle should be. Whoops.  It was an easy fix, I just cut more ruffle but each skirt has two more ruffle seams than it should. I decided not to tell the girls.

While I'm not totally thrilled with the skirts yet, I do love the pattern and I think I'll be making a few more before I give up on it.  Next time I'll shorten up the waistband width, and double the width on my ruffle pattern piece that is only half of what it should be.

I think the girls need shirts too.  Another project perhaps?