The Little Skirt

My son's school is in need of some more dress-up skirts so I volunteered to make a couple for the 3-year olds. I had never made a toddler skirt before but I wanted to learn how as my daughter loooooves "twirly skirts". {I wish you could hear the way she says that - it's just so cute!}

One request from the school was to have some more, um, "boy-geared" skirts as the boys like to get in on the dress-up action just as much as the girls. {I mean really, who doesn't like to twirl?!} So I took my kids to Beverly's and they both got to pick out their choice of fabric for the two skirts. This first skirt is from my son's choices...

Sneak to the bottom to see what he really thought of it at first!

Supplies:

* two 1/2-yards of coordinating fabric

* 21-inches 3/4-inch elastic {I wanted the finished waistline to measure 20"}

* coordinating thread

1) Cut top {in my case, checkered} fabric into 6" tall by 30" wide.

2) Sew short sides together using 1/4" seam. Press the seam open.

3) Choose a top and bottom to the fabric and turn down 1/4" seam at the top. Repeat and turn 1" down.

4) Sew the fold down, being sure to leave a 1.5" opening at some point.

5) Feed the elastic through the opening and thread the elastic through the waistline.

6) Overlap the elastic by 1/2" and stitch the ends together. This is where I've found this stitch to be particularly helpful:

The top of your skirt will be done at this point. There are a lot of options now in regards to design. I wanted a country look, to match the fabric, so I proceeded to...

7) Cut TWO sheets of bottom {in my case, patterned} fabric to 30" wide by 9" tall. You'll need TWO. Sew the shorter sides together and press seam open.

8) Sew a basting {long, lose} stitch around the top edge of the bottom/patterned fabric. Pull the bottom/bobbin string to gather the fabric. 

{General rule of thumb is to use twice the fabric length for your final fabric measurement. i.e. We want the fabric to gather to the length of the top/checkered fabric length of 30" so we're using 60" of fabric to gather.}

9) I pinned the "wrong" sides together at this point because I wanted to raw edges exposed, for the country look. 

 

In hindsight, I think I would rather have the bottom/patterned raw edge exposed but keep the top/checkered edge hidden. Thus, next time I would pin the wrong side of the bottom/patterned to the right side of the top/checkered, leaving a 1/2" seam.

10) Sew the bottom and top fabrics together, staying just off to the side of the basting stitch. Pull the thread from the basting stitch out.

11) Turn 1/4" of the bottom hem over. Press and/or then fold over again and stitch close the bottom hem.

12) Cut 2" wide strips of top/checkered fabric. I wanted to make a tight, gathered hem here so I used about six fabric strips of 2" wide by 30" long.

13) Run a basting stitch along the fabric, just off the center of the fabric. {When you sew the strip onto the hem, you'll want to sew in the middle of the strip.}

14) Gather the fabric by pulling on the bottom/bobbin thread to your desired tightness. Pin.

15) Sew gathered fabric onto the skirt, sewing down the middle of the strip. Pull out the thread from the basting stitch when you're done.

And...

"Boys don't wear skirts, mom!"

A fun little country skirt for dress-up, hanging out, or going out. Really, these basic measurements and steps open the door to many skirt possibilities.

I'm making a different skirt from my daughter's fabric next - Really excited about this one! What toddler skirts have you made??

Enhanced Rice Krispie Bars

Every year our church, Grace Church, has the privilege of hosting the Women's Overflow Shelter in the Fall. This means, we get to designate a portion of our campus to temporarily housing women who find themselves without a home. 

My friend Susan and I get to spend time with the ladies tonight before they retire to their beds - helping with their kids, lending an ear, sharing about our Provider {of comfort, rest, joy, love, peace...} should they desire to hear about Him, and just chatting.

We want to bring them some goodies they could enjoy so I've made them so scrumptious Green Pumpkinseed and Cranberry Crispy Bars that I found in Cooking Light's 2007 Annual Recipe Book. The recipe adds a list twist on the average Rice Krispie bar which is already super yummy. I'm not sure I'll be able to go back to it though after tasting these!

I *did* use EarthBalance butter spread instead of butter. I wonder if you can add ground flax to them?? Let me know if you try it.

A bonus: they don't really go bad for a while so they pack well in lunches, or they'll be great for the ladies tonight should they decide to save them for later.

Please place these particular ladies in your prayers tonight - that they may be blessed during their time at Grace Church, and that they experience His grace while they are there.

Superhero Mask Tutorial

I think it's so interesting how concepts get picked up outside the house, and we are then stuck with them! This can be good, and bad.

An example of good: My son and daughter go to the same preschool {Grandmother's House Children's Center in SLO, CA} and they came home one day and sang the sweetest prayer before dinner. It was simple: 

"Hands, hands, hands. 

Thank you God for hands. 

Food, food, food. 

Thank you God for food. 

Friends, friends, friends. 

Thank you God for friends. 

Amen. Amen. Ameeeeeeeen!"

I mean, the sweetest thing ever. No complaints here!

An example of bad... Well, I won't give you the specifics of when my dear, sweet son dropped an "F-bomb" as part of a statement he heard somewhere. {VERY doubtful from school!} But there's just stuff that they inevitably see {billboards, books, friends, school, people, grocery store, life} and it sticks with them.

Right now, it's Batman for us. We've never had a Batman book, or Batman Band-Aids, or videos or anything, but right now our little dude is stuck on Batman. And, since he already has a cape, he needed a mask. Thus:

I got the template for the mask on "first palette - Your step-by-step guide to kids' crafts". Yes, a site I just discovered but all parents and grandparents should know about. But, since I'm in love with fabric and sewing, I wanted the mask to be more than just colors on paper. 

So, here's what I did:

1) Cut out the pattern, or draw your own and cut it out.

2) To give the mask some thickness, fold two layers of iron-on fusible webbing and trace/cut or use your rotary blade to make two layers of the mask with the webbing.

*If your image isn't reversible, make sure the webbing is facing the right way {the side you iron onto fabric is bumpy} so that you can iron the webbing onto the fabric and have them face each other when placed together. You'll see in a sec.

3) Iron the webbing onto the fabric following the product's directions, then cut out the pattern but leave about 1/4" border.

4) Cut two 15-20" strips of your ribbon on choice. We stuck with Batman colors and chose a wide yellow ribbon. {You can also make a strip of fabric for this purpose too.}

[Addendum: Since making this superhero mask I realized that the kids might enjoy a more instant-gratification model - that is, a mask that doesn't involve the help from mom or dad to put on.

For my daughter's mask I used a 9-inch piece of 3/4-inch elastic and a 20-inch strip of ribbon. I pinned the elastic on each end of the ribbon, and also in the middle:

I then sewed the elastic onto the ribbon, slowly feeding the two through the machine using a zig-zag stitch, not stretching the elastic until I could grab the two from the back. Once I could, I stretched the elastic to the halfway point and pulled the ribbon/elastic out from the back to help progress the ribbon along. This produces a gathered ribbon for a final look like this:

This way, when it falls off - and it will - mommy or daddy doesn't have to be there to put it back on. I'm going to switch my son's to this style too.]

5) Place the two fabrics webbing-sides together and position the ribbons/fabric strips where they'd work best for later tying the mask onto the toddler's face. I did two rows of a basic stitch close together to secure the ribbon onto the mask.

{This is where, if you don't have a reversible image, you want to make sure you webbing image goes on the correct side of the fabric so that, when you put them together, it's a two-layered mask. Does that make sense? If not, email me.}

6) Do a close zig-zag stitch around the edges of the entire mask and eye-holes.

7) Chose the desired length of your ribbon, cut. Use a match to heat-seal the edges of the ribbon to prevent fraying.

8) Give it to a toddler and watch their imagination go wild! :)

Do send pics if you decide to make this. It's super easy and goes a long way. At least until the next thing gets stuck in his little brain. :)

If you were a superhero, what color would your mask be?? Mine: orange.

P.S. I made this for my 4-year old but it also fits on my very petite 2-year old {and yes, I'll admit it fits me pretty well too!} so it's pretty versatile for any age.