My niece (in the Asian sense of the word where everyone is your relative-> spreading the love) needed to dress up as a Disney princess for the last week of school and started asking around for a purple coloured maxi skirt to dress up as Princess Jasmine. Unfortunately, I don’t own a purple skirt so I failed on ‘super Aunt’ points. But half an hour later she sent me another message asking for a yellow skirt because she now wanted to dress up as Snow White. As luck would have it, I had the perfect outfit for Snow White- as pointed out by my lovely readers on my tutorial for a crop t-shirt. Super Aunt to the rescue!
So she went off to school and came back saying that no one believed that the t-shirt was home made. I assured her it was and told her to have a look on the site and try making one herself. Obviously she didn’t and instead her requests for me to make her dresses and skirts grew (especially after seeing my graduation dress). Typical teenager!
Then the summer holidays came along. I decided to take her out to the fabric store and teach her the basics of sewing and show her how easy the crop T-shirt really was to make. Cue a fun day of sewing.
…Some wiggly lines… A few pin pricks… Only one tantrum (two, if you include my “DON’T USE MY DRESS SCISSORS TO CUT PAPER” lesson)…
At first she was disappointed with the top, as it appeared to bunch in places but I assured her that 50% of sewing clothes is in the ironing. And voila- that steaming lunk of metal really does make everything better!
Once the top was completed- she was rearing to go. Next task: maxi skirt. We did this using the elastic shirring method (as mentioned in my upcycling post). It works really well, with the only downside being that there’s fewer frills in the skirt as opposed to if you put the frills in yourself with basting stitches. But it’s perfect for sewing beginners, so I’ll definitely try and get a tutorial posted on how to make them.
All in all, it was one days worth of shopping and sewing and at the end she went home in a brand new outfit! (Total cost: Top £1.50, skirt £3)
Winner! Anyone else love a good home made bargain?
love,
little pomegranate
P.s. She’s now gone home and is onto making her second crop T shirt!