April's projects: altered skirt, baby pants, and shortened sleeves!

I have been doing lots more sewing lately and I'm just eating it up. I love projects. I am finally feeling like I am getting good enough at sewing to do just about anything I want to do. It is fun and very rewarding. Here are the projects I've completed this month:

1. My 25 cent skirt:


I found this skirt at a yard sale and liked the bold print but the price tag is what really sold me. It was very many sizes too large but for a quarter, I thought it would be worth trying to take it in. I wanted to start on it within a day or so because when I get on fire about a project, it quickly dies out...hence my basement full of unfinished projects. More on my crafting A.D.D. later...

The first thing I did was unpick the waistband, remove the drawstring and elastic, and iron it flat.

Then I grabbed another skirt I had that was similar and that fit me and laid it over top for a cutting guide.

From the edge, I measured in the same amount on both sides of the skirt and made marks with a pencil and ruler and then cut away the unwanted width. Then I sewed down both sides and then zig-zagged the edges for anti-fraying purposes.

Then I folded the waistband down the way it originally was and sewed around it to form a casing for the elastic and drawstring. I left a small opening so I could thread the elastic and drawstrings back through it. I cut the existing elastic to size, threaded it through the waistband, sewed the elastic together, stitched up the opening in the waistband, pressed the new side seams I just made, and ba-da-bing: I had a new skirt for 25 cents!


2. Baby outfit from scraps:
This outfit started from the scraps of fabric I had leftover from a fun project I did last year for a friend. She has 4 daughters so I challenged myself to make 4 matching (but not identical) dresses.

I have this pattern for Ruffle Pants by Sandi Henderson and had never made the pants so I grabbed this darling flower fabric I had left over and made the ruffle capris in size 12-18 months thinking Quinn could wear them this summer. They turned out so adorable but I could not pull them over her voluptuous thighs so I made a little shirt to match using Sandi's peasant top pattern and gave the outfit to my friend's baby.

This outfit was easy and cost me nothing but a little time and some supplies I had lying around my basement.

3. Ruffle Pants, second try:

I really wanted Quinn to have some ruffle pants, so I dug around and found this fun old piece of fabric my mom gave me like 10 years ago. I altered the pattern to accommodate Quinn's chubbs and made these ruffle capri pants for her. Then I remembered that I'd made a hat from that same fabric when Preslie was a toddler and dug it out. Now for a top to match ... hmm. That is a project for May.


4. Long Sleeve shirt to short sleeve:

Preslie needed a short sleeve shirt to go with a skirt that was given to her so I tried my hand at altering. It worked! I completely removed and unpicked the sleeves, and using another one of her t-shirts for a pattern, cut the desired length and shape of the sleeves, hemmed them, and sewed them back onto the shirt.

Not too shabby!