Saturday afternoon project: a play skirt

Jan 23I've had this idea rolling around in my mind for awhile now and found the perfect fabric with which to experiment. My girls love to wear dresses every day, and tend to want to wear their better "Sunday" dresses. They don't have nearly enough skirts.

This shirt was on it's way to the thrift store when I saved it for a new purpose.

Nearly any shirt will do for this project. I chose a simple cotton with a geometric design which I thought would hide sewing mistakes pretty well.

1. cut the top of the shirt, just under the arms for the longest skirt length. This one had a pocket which I removed because for one it was in the wrong place for a skirt and I also have other plans for it.
2. button up and stitch it down. I thought the buttons would be cute, but you could also make a seem leaving the buttons out.

3. create a hem at the bottom. If it's a tailored shirt, you may have to remove some extra material at the bottom so you can make a nice hem.

4. a simple waist band. I cut the finished edge off of each sleeve, making sure to leave enough extra fabric to work with. Sew one set of ends together and after measuring your little one's waist, leave enough extra for a snap or hook and eye, or if you're really good, button and hole.

I am not really good, so I will do a snap.

5. run a loose stitch around the top of the skirt and pulled the ends to gather the fabric.

6. face the right sides of the waist band and the skirt together, rough ends together and stitch.

If you look closely, I missed some fabric in the gather to the left of the hanger.

If I could have found my snaps I would have included sewing the snap in the instructions, but I could not, so I did not. But don't forget that step or you'll have to pin the waist band together like I had to because the new owner was too excited to wait to wear her new skirt while I dug through my sewing boxes. Note to self: make sure you have all of your materials before you begin the afternoon project.

Looking closely at this picture you will also see that my stitches are atrocious near the button flap, but the nice thing about this fabric was that the large plaid design looks alot like stitches and kind of camouflages my sloppiness.

Also, I did not iron the skirt but that would have made the end product look much nicer.

The best part was seeing her face as she looked at me with admiration. I guess it's been awhile since the sewing machine was out.

Have fun! I'm going to be on the prowl for more discarded shirts!