It’s part of the Summer Sewing Contest blog hop going on over at Ellison Lane Quilts. Check out the great projects from an amazingly talented group of sewing bloggers. I will have full instructions for making this tote on the 28th!

Anyway, she really wanted a ballerina party, and that’s exactly what she got.

{Once again, I have Kate to thank for all the great pictures I have. All pictures in this post were taken by Kate Johnson Photography.}

I made her a bunting with her name on it. This will hang in her bedroom once I actually get it painted.

I set up the treat table… maybe a little too well. But hey, most ballerinas could use a little fattening up, am I right? Or maybe that’s just my jealousy of their skinny butts talking. Maybe.

We had cupcakes and French macarons.

There was old fashioned rock candy and grapes. See? Grapes are healthy… ballerinas eat grapes, right?

Cake pops, a bowl full of sixlets, and pink lemonade in milk glasses with stripey straws.

It was lunch time, so there was real food too. Chicken salad on croissants and trays full of veggies.

She had cute little friends from the neighborhood along with her cousins. Kate set up this backdrop and did photos of all of them in their ballerina outfits. Or red shirts if they were boys… so glad the boys who have no relation to each other came color coordinated.

We had a scavenger hunt and they all ran around my house to find the pieces for their necklaces. I printed up some bottle cap cutouts {from here and here}  and they got to pick their ribbon colors and make necklaces {from here} for their party favors.

It was a great party. In the hours before everyone came over, I was stressing and thinking “Why on earth did I do all this? They are 4! They don’t care!” But you know what? They do care. And I care. I know there are more important things in life than how “cute” a little girl’s birthday party is, but it was so much fun. The kids loved it. The grownups loved it. And it makes for great memories. Seeing her girlfriends at church the next day all wearing their necklaces tells me how much fun they had.

And their daddy coming over after church to pick up leftover cupcakes and a sandwich tells me that the food was pretty OK too. (Along with all the boys in my Sunday School class… seriously, how on earth did I have two dozen cupcakes left?!)

Still the same. Oh, I bought the paint and lacquer eons ago as well, but it’s all been sitting around waiting.

Waiting for what? Thanks for asking. Waiting for a key. See, the top was locked, and my aunt couldn’t find the key. I called around, since it’s just one of those little ones with a number on it, thinking I could buy a new one. Well, nobody would just sell me a key, since it’s the same kind as those filing cabinet keys. I could be trying to break into my cubicle neighbor’s cabinet at work and steal the cup o soup in her drawer for lunch. I would have to pay a fortune for a locksmith to come to my house, look at the piano and the number on the key and hand me a $2 key.

So, some neighbors were visiting one day and I mentioned this to them. One of them said she had a key ring with tons of little keys and I could try them out and see if one fit. I wasn’t very hopeful, but I tried them out. There were a few key rings, so I picked up the one with only three keys first. I looked at the numbers, and one of them matched! I tried it out and sure enough, the first key I looked at unlocked my piano.

So now, it. is. on. Once I get back from Quilt Market in a few weeks, I am moving it to the garage* and painting it red! Hello cranberry piano.Yeah, red won the color contest.

*Just to clarify… I will not move it to the garage. I will supervise after I bribe all the man-folk in my neighborhood with cookies to come move it.

I hope this makes sense. If you have any questions, just let me know and I’d be happy to answer them. Seriously, this is a super easy skirt to make, only slightly more involved than making a basic twirl skirt. Here we go.

Materials Needed
approximately 1/2 yard of two different prints (mine is from Riley Blake, Farm Fresh by October Afternoon)
3/4″ elastic
ribbon
basic sewing supplies

Step 1 – cut your fabrics. How much fabric you need will depend on the size you’re making. To figure it out, all you need to do is measure around the waist and the length. For example, my girls’ waists are 19″ around. (Yeah, both of them. Lottie is a little small for her age, and Kelsey is a little big. So, at 16 months apart… they even out in size. Lottie’s just an inch taller.) Anyway… back to the tutorial. Next you decide how long you want the skirts to be. I wanted them to hit just below the knee, which turned out to be 15″ long. You’re not going to add anything to the length here. No accounting for elastic casing. Just cut a piece of fabric about twice as wide as your waist measurement and the exact length you want. I cut mine 15″ x 42″ (the width of the fabric). If you want it more poofy, or if your girl’s waist is bigger, just cut two pieces and sew them together to get the width you need.

You will cut two of these, one for the “underskirt” and one for the “overskirt” or gathered piece. In my pictures the underskirt is the brown dot, the overskirt is the floral.

Step 2 – Right sides together, sew each fabric to itself along the short edge. This will create a very wide tube.I used my serger, but you could just use your regular machine and finish with a zig zag stitch to prevent fraying. This is where you also want to finish your hems. You could go all “finished looking” by turning it up and then turning it up again. We all know I’m kind of lazy… so I just did a rolled hem on my serger. If you do decide to turn it up, take that into consideration on cutting your length.

Step 3 – Sew your layers together. This is probably the most confusing part, because it seems like you’re doing it wrong. With both layers right side out, put the overskirt inside the underskirt. Sew them together along the top edge. So the right side of your overskirt should now be sewn to the wrong side of your underskirt.

Step 4 – Now you’re going to turn it so the overskirt is on the outside, leaving 1″ to sew a casing for the elastic. This will make it so the seam is on the inside of the elastic casing, leaving no itchiness around the waistline. Once you turn it and press it, stitch in the ditch around the top, but leave about 2″ unsewn to insert the elastic.I think it’s easier to understand when you see the picture.

This is why we didn’t have to add any length to account for a casing. You’re making the casing from the overskirt fabric only, which allows the underskirt to hang 2″ below the bottom of the overskirt. Nice, right?

Step 5 – Sew a gathering stitch through the overskirt. I did this about 3″ to the side of center. The seam is in the back, which gave me a nice center line (where the fabric was folded on the bolt). I just eyeballed a line about 3″ to the side (marked in red in the picture below). Set your stitch length to a nice long setting and sew through the overskirt only. Don’t backstitch at the beginning or end.

Once you sew the line, pull on the bobbin thread to gather it as much as you like. I only gathered a little at first, but decided I liked it much bunchier. I gathered it quite a bit.

Step 6 – Attach ribbon. Cut a length of ribbon that will cover the gathering stitch from the waistband to the hem. Pin it at the top and bottom, and sew along both sides (make sure you set your stitch length back to its normal setting for this). This will hold your gather in place and add a nice little accent on the skirt.

Step 7 – Insert elastic. Cut your 3/4″ elastic 1″ shorter than the waist measurement. I like the non-roll underwear elastic. It’s quite stretchy, and if I don’t take a little off the length, it falls right off my girls. They have no butts. You can use a safety pin or a bodkin (love love love it) to thread it through. Overlap the edges about 1/2″ and sew it together. Now sew the opening in your casing closed and just like that, super cute gathered skirts.

I added fabric covered buttons to the tops of the ribbon, just to finish it off a little more.

]]> http://www.thebusybean.com/2012/05/gathered-skirt-tutorial/feed/ 0 http://www.thebusybean.com/2012/04/happy-easter-2/ http://www.thebusybean.com/2012/04/happy-easter-2/#comments Sun, 08 Apr 2012 01:39:51 +0000 Colleen http://www.thebusybean.com/?p=1449

From our house to yours, we hope you have a wonderful Easter.

Kate took some wonderful pictures of my girls in their Easter outfits. I’ve got a tutorial planned this week to share how to make the cute gathered skirts.

I finished my Pure quilt.

Got all of my blocks put together and trimmed for my Fenced In quilt

Started a new quilt using a Hello Betty layer cake I’ve had sitting around for a while

Made Easter outfits for my girls

I’ve done some bee blocks, some little projects I can’t think of, and a lot of family stuff. I’ve got some other stuff planned coming up, like a zipper week. Yeah, all kinds of zippers, how to use them, where to put them, and how to have fun with colors. I taught a little class at our local guild meeting, and I realized how much people are scared of them, for no good reason. I promise, they’re not as difficult as you might think. I’m working out some prizes for linking up your projects using zippers.

It’s a postage stamp postage stamp! I know, a little lame, but at the same time, kind of awesome?

I swore that after Brad’s quilt I was done with tiny squares for a while. That really didn’t last long. I started pulling out my scrap bins one by one and cutting a 1.5″ square of each fabric in them. I had planned on doing 400 1″ squares (20 x 20), but that was just turning out too big. Instead, I cut back to laying out the postage stamps 16 x 16 = 256 1″ squares.

I made 2″ drunkard’s path blocks for the border, to get that look of the real postage stamp’s edge you get when you tear them off the roll.

And of course, I just had to quilt in the meter mark, on top of lots and lots of little pebble quilting.

I was thinking I would turn it into a pillow, but I kind of like the back side view of the quilting so much, I might just leave it alone and turn it around on my wall every now and then. We’ll see.

For now, I’m just hoping I have a shot at  the Flea Market Fancy giveaway as part of the challenge… head over and see all the other awesomeness that has been linked up… I think it’s really a long shot for everyone!

Just in time for my sister’s birthday. She commented to me one day that she really loved this quilt (she saw me post it on Instagram… kind of forgot she was on Instagram!) and I had to try really hard to keep it in that it was for her for a birthday/housewarming present.

I knew I wanted to make  a quilt using the Heather Ross fish in bags print. Sister kind of has a thing about fish, and keeping them alive… anyway… I thought for a really long time about how to use them, since I only had a little scrap, not even a fat quarter.

Initially, I had planned on framing them out in a little white, then doing a log cabin something, kind of like Brooke did. Then I saw Kati’s gallery quilt and knew it was perfect for my sister. Clean lines, really accenting some bold focus fabrics, and I could frame out one of each goldfish so they really stood out.

(Bjorn is my favorite fishie. Don’t tell the others.)

Kati was kind enough to let me use her layout. (She’s thinking of turning it into a pattern, which I fully support). I love how the whole thing turned out. It was a lot of fun to make, and perfect for special fabrics you want to feature without cutting them up too much.

I love how the graphic prints of Echo (Lotta Jansdotter) combine with the Impressions (Ty Pennington) to give it  a completely modern feel, and bring out the colors of the fish.

I hope sister really loves it now that it’s all done, and it’s hers. She doesn’t actually know it’s hers yet, since she went out of town for her birthday, but it’s waiting at her house to surprise her when she gets home tonight. I’m pretty sure she won’t be checking the blog before then. I hope.

Heartstrings Quilt

Doll Quilts – I made six little quilts to swap with some friends. We have a Valentine’s theme, so I went with reds and pinks, with a touch of aqua so they aren’t so… red and pink? Offset wonky log cabin surrounding an appliquéd heart. I hope they like them.

Bee block for Rachel – a group of local friends got together for a quilting bee. We each make one block a month, taking turns to have everyone make a block for us. This month Rachel asked us to do a block using this tutorial at the Parfait Cafe. It was a little bit of a challenge, really making sure that everything lined up right, but I really love the outcome. It’s not really that difficult a block, but it does take time.

In Progress:

I finished the top of my gallery quilt, pieced a back, and got it all quilted. I’m just sewing up the binding and then it will be done. This is the first quilt I actually started this year, so it will be nice to have one started and finished within a few months. That’s just not my usual, but nice.

I already have plans for another quilt using this kind of layout (maybe I’ll mix up the positions a little) with some of my favorite prints from Tula Pink’s Price Charming line. I love that I won’t have to cut up some of the fun motifs there, and I think they will really stand out in a quilt like this.

Next Up:
Quilting my Pure quilt
Finishing my Fenced In quilt
Making Kelsey’s quilt – I have all the blocks back from my local quilting bee friends, now I’ve got to add a little more and get it put together.
Finishing my string blocks quilt
Finishing all my little projects from my Strip Club at Quilt Etc.

Total:

Finished – 3
New – 0
Making Progress – 1
No Progress – 5

I finished up my Heartstrings quilt last week, so we could enjoy it in time for the big day of love. It’s growing on me again, after I had given up hope of liking it.

I hope you all have a happy day of love.