Janie's Skirt

We had Sarah and her girls over the other day and Janie took this picture of Ericka, I thought it was cute and since Sarah doesn't have access to her blog right now I thought I would post it on here.

Here are a few pictures of the skirt I made for Janie this year. Skirts really are so easy to make. Here is a link that got me thinking about how I wanted to do this skirt. http://www.modabakeshop.com/2009/05/little-girls-patchwork-skirt.html

For Janie's I just measured her waist and tripled that length. Then I measured how long to make it and cut a rectangle piece to those measurements. If you wanted to just make a simple gathered skirt you could add about 3 inches to the length measurement, fold it over about an inch and a half, sew and that would create a waist band to put your elastic in. Then you would just have to run the elastic through the waistband and sew the end together. I wanted the more finished look of a regular waistband so I sewed a gathering stitch on the long rectangular piece of fabric and gathered it. Then I measured Janie's waist again, cut two strips of fabric, one for the front and one for the back, and the width that I wanted and sewed the two together. I pictured in my mind a big chunky bow at the waist so I sewed those into the side seams when I sewed the waistbands together. Then I sewed the gathered main section of the skirt to the waistband, put in a zipper and there you go. I know it sounds complicated but it really isn't! NO pattern just measurements. I also thought it would be cute to make a bolero jacket to match the skirt so I made a pattern by using a brown paper bag and tracing the shape that I wanted with the use of Janie. I made a cute flower broach for the jacket and there you have it.