It’s been a little quiet around here. Sorry! I’ve been working on a couple gifts that I can’t post about until they are given. Those have been in the big projects. But I’ve been busy with a few little projects too. Mostly making clothes for Lu to wear this summer. Her school usually requires navy and red uniforms, but summer they have free dress. Yay!

The only problem is that Lu has decided she only likes to wear skirts and with her little 19 inch waist almost all commercially made skirts fall right off of her. And yes, I could have just altered the waists on purchased skirts, but making them is more fun and super easy.

For instance this little elastic waisted skirt featuring Ann Kelle’s Super Kids fabric.

Such a simple skirt to make. I just cut a big rectangle, added a casing for the elastic, and hemmed it. A project that takes less than an hour from start to finish but makes the most of a larger scale print.

There is also this little skirt made with Heather Ross Briar Rose Fabric.

This is fabric Lu picked out when we went to The Intrepid Thread last February. To make this one I traced her favorite Hanna Anderson skirt for the shape and length. Then I added a ruffle to the bottom and an elastic waist band. I was cursing myself for adding the ruffle because it sucked up a lot of time, but the end result is so cute that I’m glad I stuck with adding the fun detail.

Then there is the skirt Lu and I designed together using Cotton + Steel’s Palm Springs lawn.

This was a fun skirt to put together. I had a piece just 26 inches long and spent a couple of months trying to decide how to use the fun pink border that runs along one selvage of the fabric. It wasn’t quite long enough to be on the hem of a dress or skirt. So one night Lu and I studied the fabric and we decided to put the flower on a pocket. Yes! a pink pocket. Lu was pleased. And I had just enough length left to make a pink waistband too. This one is fun because it is also fully lined with the blue flowers.

And the last to share today is not actually a skirt, but a skort!

Skorts are the best. Looks like a skirt, but with shorts built in for modesty while playing. The fabric came from a Girl Charlee KnitFix. I decided to try it out one month and was disappointed in the prints and quality overall. But someone traded with me so I could have this daisy print which worked perfectly for this project.

Originally I’d thought to make a dress with it, but then I took a trip to JoAnn’s and found McCall’s patterns on sale 5 for $7. So I took a look through their catalog and found that their children’s patterns start at size 3. Perfect! M6918 is such a versitile pattern. 4 different skirt shapes and the option for shorts or capris underneath. I will get a lot of use out of this pattern. All I had to modify was the length of elastic in the waist!

Whew! So that makes 4 skirts for this summer, but that won’t be enough! More to come once I have them put together. But probably not for a couple of weeks as my machine is due for a little maintenance. In the meantime I’ll be knitting and update you on a couple of other projects I’ve been working on.