7.11.11

Denim Skirt

My daughter is reaching that dreadful, dreadful age.  You know, the one where you can't eek a piece of clothing for her out of the side scraps from your own projects.  It is also the age at the upper end of sizes for many children's patterns in Burda magazine. Sad, I know.

I did manage to scrape together this denim skirt though.  It is leftovers from some denim shorts that I made myself and haven't shown you yet.  The pattern is from Burda 11/2010, style 149.


The fabric wrinkles in the wash more than I expected.  I guess that will reduce over time.  It is an unusual colour, with a slight purplish tinge to it.

I did modify the pattern a little.  She has narrow hips.  I modified the waistband so that I could elasticate the waist.  I split the waistband into an inner and outer piece, rather than cut it as a single piece with a fold at the top edge.  I then pieced the inner band, so that it had seams  about 5 cm from the button closure.  I thread elastic through the waistband at these seams and then stitched it in place.  I used regular elastic rather than adjustable button hole elastic as I find that the adjustable elastic is not firm enough.


The same issue of Burda had some stovepipe jeans for boys.  I want to try these out, as my boys have such narrow hips that they really have to gather in the elastic on RTW adjustable waist jeans. 

BTW, can you all zoom in on photos anymore?  I seem to have lost this ability in blogger, but I don't know if it is just my settings or the if it is the way they manage photos now.

11 comments:

Sew-4-Fun said...

Nice skirt. I like the contrast on the inside.

Yes Blogger has changed the way photos are viewed. The default is the new lightbox (?) format I think they call it. When we click on a photo it opens in a special screen. At the bottom left is a link to the original photo in it's original size, so yes we can still zoom. It just takes more clicks.

This is the way it is on all blogs unless the blogger (you in this case) changes it under the settings. If you prefer the "old" way make the change in the settings. It's up to you how we view your photos. :) HTH

sophie said...

Really beautiful! I love the cute contrast fabric. I used to be able to make so much from 1m of fabric, not any more. My girls are so big now I don't get anything less than 2m!

BTW, I clicked on the photos and they opened in a new screen much bigger.

Mary said...

That is a cute skirt! I love the contrast fabric.

ChristineB said...

Oh, I feel your pain - was making a skirt this past weekend for my daughter from some scraps I had leftover from another project, and just barely managed to have enough. And she told me that she wouldn't wear it at the same time that I was wearing my dress (from the same fabric), anyway. I've never been much into "Mommy and Me" match-y dressing, but clearly she is over it.

The good news is I that she hasn't complained about me refashioning clothing for her that we find at the local Goodwill store. :-)

kbenco said...

I love this cute skirt. The contrast inside sections are really pretty.
It is rather sad to be past the clothes from left overs phase, I agree. I was inordinately pleased with the short-shorts I squeezed from some denim scraps for my 14 year old - small pleasures!
The post child's 7 and pre adult size 34/6 are not great for girls patterns IMO. I used mainly old TopKids, Burda(envelope) and Jalie patterns, finding the big4 generally sack like, although we did have some success with a few of the Lizzie McGuire simplicity ones.

Gabrielle said...

I really like the colourful fabric lurking on the inside of this cute skirt. I hope your daughter enjoys wearing it!

I'm not up to that size issue with my kids quite yet but I am taking notes :-) for future reference.

Carolyn said...

This skirt is so cute, and very girl-appropriate. I'm sure she highly approves! The contrasting fabric inside is a nice surprise.
I'd noticed that about blogger too. Sew-4-fun's advice was good, might have to try it out. However, I managed to zoom in on your photos in the lightbox format too.
btw, my daughter is at the stage where she has as much spent on her fabric as I spend on my own :D Leftovers are more of a challenge now....!

nikkishell said...

I was just discussing this problem with a customer at work today! The days i can make clothes for my older girls from the scraps of my own fabrics are almost over. They almost use as much fabric as i do now!

Great skirt, i have that pattern, i think i'll try it out.

Mary Nanna said...

Such a cute skirt! I love the way you put in elastic and adapted the waist band to accomodate. I keep looking at it and wishing that Burda did simple practical every day wear patterns for adults too.

Gail said...

Cute skirt. But I have to tell you that the dreadful age is when you can't make anything at all for them!

Tanit-Isis said...

It's terribly cute! I think my kids are hovering around the same age... although a lot of their projects are made from fabric they pick out in the clearance section.