Summer set for Miss O
Since the weather is heating up like crazy, it’s time to do some summer sewing for the kids. Thanks to tiny happy I found this excellent tutorial for a girl’s twirly skirt, and I tried it out. Erik’s step-mom brought me some wonderful retro-reproduction fabric the last time she was here, and Olga picked the blue piece with "Hey Diddle Diddle" on it.
I don’t really like how the gathered waist band feels, but it is very cute. The waist band is the full width of the skirt, so all the bulk is gathered up by the elastic, rather than some of the fullness being gathered into the waist band and the remainder taken up by the elastic. I doubt it’s the most comfortable on a little girl’s tummy, but she’s not complaining, so we’ll go with it for now. I need to shorten the drawstring considerably, since it’s long enough that she can wrap it around her neck (my fault, not a fault of the pattern).
The cute top is an interpretation of New Look 6476. The pattern calls for a facing along the top edge, which finishes the edges and makes a pretty contrast when the shoulders are tied, but I didn’t have any matching fabric in large enough quantities to pull it off. (Why is this always a problem–I have a ton of fabric, but never the piece I need!) So I bound the top edge with 1/4" double fold bias tape instead. I don’t really like the fit of the shirt, but it seems comfortable, and Miss O likes it.
Construction wise, the outfit came out perfectly, but there are a couple things you might notice in person that aren’t quite right. First, the bias tape is "berry" not red, so it’s a bit darker than the red of the skirt. Not that big of a deal. The other thing is that when cutting out the red fabric for the skirt, I mis-read the instructions, and only cut one waist band piece, then cut out the drawstring. When I realized my mistake, there wasn’t enough red left to cut out another waistband piece, so I cut it out of something else, and it doesn’t match nearly as well (it’s this fabric, actually).