All By Herself (Almost)

Souricette 1 loves to sew.  Not too long.  She can’t sew for more than, say, an hour at a time.  But she can sew and she loves it.  I offered to help her make herself something during her last Spring break.  Something with that rainbow fabric that I used on her sister’s dress.  She wanted shorts at first but then decided on a skort.  This one.

I took care of tracing the pattern and cutting out the fabric.  I chose a size 5 based on her waist but I was afraid it would end up on the short side.  I tried to lengthen it to a size 7.  However, the sizes aren’t nested in a way that makes it easy to choose two sizes. And there are no lengthen/shorten lines.  I cobbled something together but I’m not convinced I did a great job.

I cut the front skirt panels on the bias so that the stripes would run parallel to the bottom edge.  Playing with the stripe placement here wasn’t just for interest. I can’t yet expect souricette 1 to do a great job of stripe matching so I wanted to avoid the issue as much as possible.  I used white cotton for the lining pieces and orange for the undershorts.

Souricette 1 did most of the sewing.  And she did a good job!  I placed a piece of washi tape on the sewing machine to give her a visible seam allowance guide.  I pinned and pressed and she sewed.  I only had to redo one seam where she’d gone off her seam allowance.  I did do the work of basting layers together because I wanted to be sure everything was perfectly aligned.  Souricette 1 did her first buttonholes.  Sure, my machine has a one step buttonhole so it’s easy but she felt so accomplished!

She picked her buttons and I showed her how to sew them on.  She did 2, one inside and one outside.  I did the rest.  Though to be honest, those outside buttons were tricky.  I had to be careful to leave the pocket intact…

Now to figure out her next project…

PS: She loves her skort.  She looks annoyed because she was tired from walking all day.  And I had to grab pictures when I could which meant she was squinting in the full sun…

About deuxsouriceaux

Creative mommy at home to two wonderful little girls, trying to juggle family, sewing, exercise, family, knitting, photography, and did I mention family?