Skip to main content

Patchwork Skirt and Owl T-Shirt

During the summer, Heidi of Handmade by Heidi generously gave away some of her scraps. I was the lucky recipient of one batch and was thrilled with what I received. One of the things in the box was a partial charm pack. If you aren't familiar with quilting, a charm pack is a set of pre-cut 5" squares - one from each piece in a fabric collection. Every time I'm in a quilt shop I look at the charm packs and am tempted to buy one, but I've never been sure what to do with them so I've never bought one.

Several weeks ago the Sew, Mama, Sew blog featured back-to-school patterns and tutorials. One from The Polka Dot Chair caught my eye and after looking at it further, I decided to try making it with the charm pack from Heidi. I really liked the T-shirt with the owl applique, too and decided to just copy the whole outfit.

Patchwork Skirt and Owl T-shirt
My daughter is really happy with these clothes, but you sure wouldn't know it from the picture.

Since I was working with only a partial charm pack, I had to add some squares of other fabric, but I found what I needed in Heidi's box. I did have to buy the fabric for the lower band and the waistband. While I wasn't sure I was going to like it when I bought these fabrics, I did the best I could given my choices and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Patchwork Skirt

The skirt tutorial has good instructions, but I did change a couple of things. First, I sewed the squares together with my serger. The piecing isn't as accurate as I could have done with my sewing machine, but I thought the raw edges needed to be finished.

Skirt waistband

Second, I moved the elastic casing to the center of the waistband, rather than the top as suggested. I wanted the ties to cover up the elastic and look like a paper-bag waist.

Owl applique

I don't do a lot of machine applique because I have a hard time getting it to look good. I'm happy with how my machine handled this one. The green around the eyes and the yellow around the feet doesn't look all that great, but those are small curved pieces that required a lot of tiny pivots.

Because the shirt is a knit, I fused a tear-away stabilizer on the back to prevent stretching and rippling. The parts of the owl are fused on with Wonder-Under. In the picture, it looks like the button eyes are really off-center. I think that is because of the angle that I was holding the camera.

And yes, those are pink breast cancer awareness ribbons on the brown owl belly fabric. Was my intention to have my six-year-old daughter make a statement about breast cancer? Nope. Like I said above, I did the best with the choices I had available.

Picot Elastic Neckline

Before I cut out the top, I contemplated doing something "different" with the sleeves to make it a little nicer than a plain white T with an owl slapped on it. I had a hard time coming up with anything I was excited about and decided to trim the neckline instead of change the sleeves. The picot-edge elastic was a good fit - stretchy, cute, and not overdone.

The T-shirt is based on Kwik Sew 2918 and the leggings are Burda 9615, both patterns I've used more times than I can count.

Comments

  1. This is adorable. My granddaughter would love it. Nice job.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very nice, that neckline is so cute! And ofcourse the owl and the skirt are adorable. Great outfit!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is so incredibly adorable. If I had a little girl to sew for, I would certainly be taking cues from you. Very, very cute!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love it! Combining fabrics can be tricky, but this turned out very cute.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love it too! BTW, I see nothing wrong with the owl, and think your stitching is great!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hellow!

    I love your site, It is a pleasure to visit.

    I have added your site to my site.

    Please link my site to your site.

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love how you did the waistband. What a cute idea!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I really like your latest creations and I love this outfit. Your daughter, my daughter's friend while we were at seminary, is a well experienced model and doesn't want to overdo the emotions!! I can tell she likes it!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grocery Bags

More gifts! These are just like the still-all-too-ubiquitous plastic grocery bags, but they're fabric.  I followed this tutorial and you actually use a plastic bag as a pattern.  The instructions are very good and include a pocket so that the bag can be folded up and is easy to keep in a purse or a car's glove box. Mostly for the sake of the gift recipients, here's how to fold up the bag.... 1.  Lay the bag pocket side down and fold it length-wise using the edges of the pocket as a guide. 2.  Fold it in half, aligning the top of the handles with the bottom of the bag. 3.  Fold in half again and then reach into pocket with your hand and turn the whole thing (pocket included) inside out. Happy shopping!

Shopping Bags

Most stores in our town charge you a nickel for a plastic bag when you check out. I love this practice and the way that it encourages people to bring their own cloth bags or reuse their plastic ones. My habit of bringing along bags to the grocery store is well established, but I used to find myself stuck at places like the drug store or farmer's market or other impromptu stops. Then I picked up a bag at an upscale kitchen goods store that rolls up quite compactly. Now I keep that in my purse, so I always have a bag with me. I like my bag so much that I wanted to replicate it for the art sale. The final result is a hybrid of the bag I purchased and these that I made last year. The bag is a little bigger than the average plastic grocery bag. The velcro tab is used to keep the bag rolled up, but also can close the top of the bag when it is full. Most of the bag is a single layer of cotton, but the handles are faced. There is a double row of top-stitching around both edges of

The Burda Skirt Again

I'm not sure what prompted it, but awhile ago I decided that I needed a green skirt. The last time I was at Fabricland I saw this green wide-wale corduroy. I wasn't really looking for the skirt to be corduroy and the color was a little different than I was hoping for, but since I had my eyes peeled for awhile and hadn't seen anything better, I thought I'd try the corduroy. After looking for a suitable pattern, I settled on the Burda 2/2010 skirt that I've already used three times . Because of the weight and bulk of the corduroy, I didn't want to try to mess with too many details. I'll use another skirt pattern soon. Really, I will. One of the things I really like about this pattern is the pockets. This time I made the pocket facings and part of the pocket bag out of a cotton woven solid to reduce bulk. Since I'll be wearing this skirt with tights I added a lining. Adding the lining was really simple except that I cut the lining exactly the sam