How to make a skirt

Look, I made a skirt! With pockets!

It was actually really easy (except that I messed up a few times- I was feeling fat and made it too big.)
Do you want to know how to make one, too?
{You all probably already know how to do this, it's not that difficult, but I've not made something like this since high school home ec. so I did it and now I'm showing you. No big deal, but kinda it is. Just go with it.}
I followed this tutorial, from Freshly Picked. Her instructions are a lot better than mine, but whatevs, I'll pretend like I know what I'm doing and tell you anyway!

Need about 1.5-2 yards of fabric
Elastic, I used 2 inch wide
Coordinating fabric for the pockets (you need enough for 4 of these)
Measuring tape/straight pins/sewing machines help too

 

Measure yourself- your natural waist, and your length where you want the skirt to hit. I wanted mine right at my knees (I over-compensated and it ended up a little below my knees, I may re-hem this later, I'm not sure.)

Cut your elastic about a half an inch more than your waist measurement.

You want your skirt width to be at least 1.5 to 2 times the size of your waist measurement (i.e. the elastic) so I cut 2 pieces twice my waist measurement. (Next time I only plan to do 1.5 times my waist, not 2. Twice the size makes it a very full skirt, which is fun for little girls, not necessarily bigger girls with big thighs.)

 

Start with your two pieces of skirt fabric. Find the top of your skirt.

Cut out 4 pockets out of the coordinating fabric. Make sure you do two on one side, and two on the other, so when the right sides touch they work on both sides of the skirt. (I have no picture for this part, but you can print out a pattern for the pocket from the link above, from the Freshly Picked tutorial, or you could just wing it.)

Pin your 4 pocket pieces on both edges of both pieces of your skirt, right sides together. Pin them on the edge 3 inches from the top.

Sew the pocket pieces using approx. a 1/4 inch seam (or whatever you want.)

Press your pocket pieces back. (You should now have two pieces of skirt with 4 pocket flaps- one on each side!)

Place your two skirt pieces together, right sides together.

Sew using a 1/2 inch seam along the side of the skirt and around the pocket. Do this for both sides.

Now turn your skirt out and press the seams. Now look at your pretty little pockets!

Sew your elastic together using a 1/4 inch stitch. If it is too loose, make another stitch a little tighter, about 1/2 inch. With right sides together, section off your skirt and pin it to the elastic. Try to align your stitch on the elastic with your hem on the skirt, cause it looks nicer with both seams together.

It was at this point that I tried to wrestle away my measuring tape from Abs. No such luck. She was having a grand time with my excess fabric, too.

Anyway. When you start to sew your elastic to your skirt, make sure you stretch the elastic as you sew. This gives your skirt the give it needs. I put my needle in the fabric:

And sewed one stitch (I was afraid that stretching it right off the bat would break my needle, so I stitched the one stitch to anchor it a little.) Stretch your elastic so it matches your material and it lays flat.

I took this picture after the fact so you could see that once you stretch out the elastic it takes out all of the pleats and is easy to sew- just hold back the end of your fabric with your left hand and feed the needle with your right hand. I got a pretty even stitch, but I still got a little pucker here and there, can you see it?

The tutorial above advises to zig-zag stitch over your straight one at this point, to secure it and make sure it doesn't fray. This step could be skipped if you have a serger and serge the seam before you attach it to the elastic. I don't have a serger. I did a zig-zag though, and I feel like if you don't care if it frays in the wash, you could skip it. Even if it does fray a little, it'll be on the inside.

I finished my hem. I ironed the bottom of the skirt 1/4 inch and then folded another 1/2 inch and pressed again. Then I stitched two straight lines, because I thought it looked more store-bought that way (even if the rest of the skirt looks totally homemade!)

Ta da! You're done! You've made a skirt!

You should probably ignore my bad posture and cheap mirror.

I made a mini-me version for Abby, too.

For hers I used one long piece of fabric instead of two, and created a casing for elastic and sewed it up rather than have it exposed like mine. It fits her, but she doesn't have anything that matches it.

 Actually, either do I. What would you wear with this material? Black, yellow? Plain white? How should I wear it?
There you go peeps. A silly little skirt tutorial. Are you still my friends?

Oldies

I was called "ma'am" twice this week. I also got one "lady," as in (patient at work speaking on her cell phone while I am patiently waiting for her to finish) "...I gotta go, I need to give this lady some information."
Awesome. 
I totally feel like I am getting old.


But at least I'm not as old as Carrie. I'd hate to be that old. Man, she is really freaking old.

Carrie and I. Taken outside of our old house in California probably about 1986 or 1987, before we moved to the island. I'm rocking my (growing out) Princess Diana haircut, and Robbie is evidently promoting GMAC. I like how he ended up being framed between us. What's up, Robbie? What'choo lookin at?

You know who else is really old? My dad.
Why do we care how old they are?

Because it is their birthday! That's right, Carrie was born 30 years ago today, on my dad's birthday. So head over to her bliggity blog, tell her to update it, and then wish her a happy birthday! It's a big one!
And then get on Facebook and tell my dad happy birthday, too. Because he's old, and it would make him feel good.

Happy birthday Dad and Carrie! I hope you both have a wonderful day!

Happy Sunday!

Just taking a walk

So this video was taken a few weeks ago, but it does show this little girl's enthusiasm for walking around.  She doesn't seem to be interested in walking alone yet, but I know that isn't far off.

It's pretty long, about 4 minutes, so if you don't care, just skip over!

P.S. Abby fell off the couch the other day while she was sitting with me-- she was reaching for something either on the floor or on the coffee table, I'm not sure which-- and she hit her head and her cheek against the side of the coffee table. She got a little bump on her head that has since gone down, and has a sad little bruise on her cheek that is a nice reminder to me of what a fantastic parent I am.

That's not all I had to say, but that's all for now.

Viva

We are back from a little vacation we took to Las Vegas. Yes, we brought Abby. Why, is that weird? She loved it there and had a great time. We did, too.

We stayed in the lovely Signature hotel, which is a part of the MGM Grand, located right behind it on the strip. 

It is a non-smoking hotel, (which was a lifesaver, as anyone who has stayed in a Vegas hotel knows, they pump a weird smell to cover up the smoke- it sometimes is worse than the smoke). It is also a non-gaming hotel, which means The Signature doesn't have a casino in any of its towers, so it is just a retreat, meant to be secluded from, but very close to all the action in the MGM and the rest of the strip.

 

We stayed in a suite with a kitchenette, and had a huge bathroom where we put Abby's crib. Why, is that weird? Yeah, it was a little weird, but we wanted to be able to hang out and watch TV after we put Abby down for the night.

She was very excited about it all- the lights, the people, everything. She had a great time. She especially loved to look out of our huge window that overlooked the strip.

This is how we traveled most of the time.

 This is how we traveled most of the time. We got a lot of "Hangover Baby" comments, which we totally overlooked when we planned on Spencer and I carrying her this way (being that the movie was set in Vegas, and all). It wasn't until we were walking through the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood our first night there that a bunch of guys started yelling and laughing and trying to give us high fives that I realized that he looked like Zach Galifianakis. Minus the beard, obvs...

 

We also saw this shirt all over the place, too.

We are so stinkin cool. I guess.

 We went to the pool (once, it was too cold to go any more, boo.)

 We met some famous people.

I got married to George Clooney. He's a dreamboat.
Spencer went golfing.

 This was after our delicious Bellagio buffet, waiting to see the fountains outside. We had kept Abby up a little past her bedtime, poor girl.

Abby is walking all over the place, although not on her own. She walks with a walker toy at home, and holding on to our hands. Last week she decided that while not at home, she can use her stroller too. We got a lot of looks our way while she did this.

Even though Abby wasn't smiling in most of those pictures, she had a lot of fun. She loved riding in the infant carrier and looking at everything. She actually looks pretty miserable in most of them, I now realize, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Who says you can't take a baby to Vegas? Spencer and I have been there several times and we had a loose itinerary for this trip that worked well around Abby's naps. She napped on the go, while we were doing an activity, and sometimes she napped at the hotel. She loved it. The end.

Am I super lame...

...because I made Abby and I match for church on Mother's Day?

(P.S. This is a Shabby Apple dress that I won on a blog giveaway! It's super yellow, but it was free! Yippee!)

We love mail

Miss Abigail received a package in the mail several days ago from her lovely Aunt Keena for her birthday. This deserves its own post because she was so darn excited ripping into it.

She seriously loves those Beandolls.