LOL the gorry bits mostly apply to Scarlet and I but here's what I did.
Found scraps that I wanted to use.
I prefer full length (aka 44-45").
Then I trimed/cut them to whatever they lent themselves to.
I knew I didn't want to go smaller than1.5" cut (finished 1" since I use 1/4" seam allouances like in quilting) and I didn't want to go any larger than 2.5" cut (thinking 2" strips on a little girl would be plenty wide).
So in the end I ended up with 5 sizes of strips. 1.5, 1.75. 2.0, 2.25, & 2.5. LOl it is that frugal quilter in me. If I hadn't been dealing with so many sizes of scraps I think I'd prefer to just do three sizes 1.5, 2.0, 2.5. That way I would get a little more variation. But cutting all 2.0" would work for me too. I think that would be the perfect size strips on a little girl and give lots of variation.
At this stage I played with all the strips. I found that I had almost = #'s of red vs all the others so I made two piles and sewed a red one to an "other" one.
Then I ironed all the seams to the red side
Then I played with the strips again to decide color placement.
Then I sewed 2 sets of 2 together. Then iron so all seams are faceing the same way. {Can you tell this stuff is ingrained in my brain after so many
{ all 15 years of quilting?}
Then resort, makeing sure everything still looks ok.
Then sew 2 sets of 4 together.
Press.
And sew (so) on until all the strips are done.
In my case I really wanted my skirt to have a 57" skirt based on a dress Jules has that is nice a full. Unfortunatly, my scraps only =ed 52" but I decided that was close enough.
Then I took my panel of strips to the store to find a shirt that would work with what I had going on.
I ended up not finding exactly what I wanted but did find 4 shirts (3 different) that I wanted to try.
Then I took my least favorit shirt
) I did.
And figured out aprox how long the skirt should be.
The shirt I used was a onesie type. SInce it was my 1st I didn't want to waste too much of the strips so I cut the skirt 10". This size also allowed me to make 2 additional in the length that I thought I wanted so it worked out just fine.
After cutting it to length I sewed the end strips together.
Then I hemed one side. I finger rolled as I sewed. (on the other 3 I ironed the hem first and I don't think one way turned out better than another so what ever you prefer)
Then I rad a length of stiching about 1/8 of an inch from the waist side of the dress. That was to secure the stiching at that end so while I was gathering the skirt they wouldn't pull out (I used a 1.0 (small) stich on my White).
Then 1/4" away from that (that's just what worked for me you could do it further) I ran another line of stiching using the largest stich length you can. Make sure you leave enough thread on both ends of the stich because you are going to be useing that to pull on for gathering (Lynn I pretty sure you know most of this stuff.
) But just in case someone else needes the info I'm trying to cover all the bases.)
Then you gather pulling on the bobbin thread. That may vary from machine to machine but since that's my experience and Renees it may very well be universal.
I always over gather but it would work better if you gathered a little then checked the shirt you are going to be attaching it too to make sure it is close to the correct size.
When you are happy with the gathering and size. ...
PIN (I don't usually pin anything but imo you have to pin on this one) the skirt to the bodice.
The sew. I did mine stiching between the two lines I had already there.
Once the skirt is attached to the shirt take out the basting stich.
TA DA You are done.
I've got 2 more skirts pinned to the shirts and 1 more ready to pin. I'm going to try serging the skirt to the shirt.
And I also decided that the 17" I wanted would be to long so I stuck with the 12" length from the waist line. I did end up with one really short piece (ok6" maybe) and I'm attaching that to one of the shirts (Pink 4T) and I'm going to offer it up hear at Amity's once it is finished. I really like the look of longer "skirts" on little girls. This one will be more like a shirt with a long ruffle. And would still be super cute with a pair of pink or red or even black leggings.
In addition I found the black to be to overwelming. If I had more scraps to choose from I think I'd leave the black out this time. It does have red harts on it so it really does go but it makes the piece unbalanced imo.
Whew, more than you wanted to know.
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-Jenn</font color=blue> <font color=orange>J 4/98, Jules 5/00</font color=orange>
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Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;
They are the charming gardners who make our souls blossom.
-Marcel Proust</font color=green>
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