Vader, you are my daughter

Making a Darth Vader costume for my teen daughter. Like you do.

Trying to avoid paying a ludicrous sum for a badly made male costume that is worn twice at the most. Also avoiding purchasing a badly made female Vader costume that is designed to look like a space hooker. So we bought a cheap mask, cape and light saber and I told her I'd make the T-shirt. Thank goodness for my prodigious ribbon collection. I found that gluing ribbons on to make the details is a lot neater and faster than the freezer paper stencil I had envisioned. I think I'll glue on some felt to make the gray part of the yoke at the top and call it a day. Black jeans, boots and belt and she's good to go. I mean evil. Evil to go.

Are you guys as geeked out about the upcoming Episode 7 as we are? Deep down I think I know it will be a disappointment...it's hard to imagine anything better than Episode 5. But I'm willing to find out.

My other kid wants to be a fox and somehow the entire world has been depleted of orange faux fur. I had some ordered online for a few weeks that's been backordered twice. So I gave up and canceled. I found some small pieces of neon orange at my local Joann (think Troll doll) so I'm going to see what I can do.

What are you making? You'd better get crackin'.

quick tiered skirt tutorial for preteens

You'll need:

A girl that is 10-13 yrs old and sized more or less like my kids. haha. My two girls are 21 months apart but right now they wear the same size of clothes. They are both taller than average and usually wear a 12/14 in girls clothing (and sometimes a 16). I made the gray Washi skirt slightly longer than the navy original since they are both growing at an astonishing rate right now.

This is an elastic waist skirt, so it's pretty forgiving and there's room to adjust the waist a few inches either way.

If your kid is a much bigger or smaller than mine you may need to adjust widths and lengths before you begin.

Pondering? Measure your kid's:
1) waist (wherever they wear their skirts)
2) length from their waist to their knee.
This will give you an idea if this skirt will work for your kid as is.
Or if you are a petite mom, this skirt may work really well for you!

Finished size: 
This skirt is about 21 inches long from waist to hem. The waist on ours is about 30 inches around and is meant to be worn low, just below the belly button (you can adjust the waist size below and of course you can adjust the hem).

That's how both my girls wear everything, slung low.

Materials:

1. About 1.5 yards of medium weight cotton or chambray.
2. A package of 1 7/8 inch wide bias hem facing. Mine is Wright's brand. This makes for a really easy channel for the elastic and adds a nice contrast of color inside the waist. (If you don't want to buy hem tape you can use a wide grosgrain ribbon.
3. A length of 1.5 inch wide elastic for the waistband that is long enough for your kid. In my case, that was 30 inches.
4. A ruffler for your machine.

Rip the fabric pieces:

Don't be afraid to rip! It's so much faster than cutting and you can count on it being on the grain and straight. And it's OK if your yardage is wrinkly. Rip first and press later! See, I'm already saving you gobs of time.

First true up the top edge. Cut a 1 inch slit in the selvedge side close to the top of the fabric. Snip it straight across the selvedge and then use your hands to continue ripping the fabric all the way across. I pause at the end (which is the opposite selvedge) and then I snip the that last little bit with scissors to keep from tugging it too hard. Discard what you ripped off. Now you have a straight top edge to measure the rest from.

Rip the following pieces for the skirt by measuring along the selvedge and clipping a slit through it, same as you did above. Measure one, clip, rip. Then measure the next one.

Press all the ripped pieces and whack off the selvedge edges. (Which has the added advantage of squaring up the ends. They can look a bit wonky from the ripping.)

FOR ALL THE SEWING: Use 1/2 inch seam allowances.
RST = Right Sides Together

Make the waistband.

1) Shorten the ripped 7 inch waistband piece to your kid's waist measurement plus about 8 inches. Mine was 38 inches total. Cut a piece of hem tape to the same length.

2) Sew the short ends of the waistband fabric RST (right sides together) to form a loop. Finish and press the seam.

3) Press 1/2 inch toward the wrong side along the top edge.

4) Press under 3/8 inch of the bias hem tape on both ends. Starting to the right of the waistband seam, pin it all the way around about 1/16 inch down from the top edge. The ends should meet and overlap just a tad. Edgestitch the hem tape in place on top and bottom. When you finish you'll have a slit for the elastic where the hem tape meets. Tada.

Make the tiers.

5) Did you already cut one of your 8 inch pieces in half? Good. Throw one of the halves in your scrap pile. Sew the other one RST to the full length 8 inch piece on the short side. Finish and press the seam.

6) Sew the two 10 inch pieces RST on the short side. Finish and press the seam.

7) Break out the ruffler. Set it to one tuck every 12 stitches. Stitch length should be 2 or 2.5.  If your child's waist measurement is larger than my kid's, go with 2.5.

8) Ruffle both the tiers along the top edge with a slightly less than 1/2 inch allowance. Clackety clackety clack. ALERT: Be sure to check that your needle is screwed in tight every few tucks. The ruffler might be busy trying to loosen your needle as it goes along. It's a bummer when you have to stop and screw the needle back in while your ruffler tries to look all innocent.

9) Press the ruffles nice and flat.

10) Now sew the two tiers together RST. The ruffled edge of the longer tier goes face to face with the UNRUFFLED edge of the shorter tier. Those sides should be somewhere near the same length, give or take a few inches. Pin them starting at the midpoints. Sew the seam. Finish and press the seam.

11) Now trim the sides flush. Just follow the line of the shortest tier on both sides.

12) Lay the waistband loop flat on a table. Fold the skirt tiers in half, wrong side out, and line them up to the bottom of the waistband as straight as you can. Measure how much you need to cut off of the skirt in order for it to match up to the waistband but don't forget to keep an extra half inch for the seam. If you need to, err a bit on the large side. You can always ease it in. Trim it!

13) Pin that seam together and sew RST. Finish and press the seam.

14) Pin and sew the tiers RST to the waistband. To do this, turn the waistband right side out and upside down. Turn the skirt wrong side out and tuck the waistband down inside the top, lining up the raw edges. I like to put the vertical waistband seam in the center back and line up the skirt seam on the side.

15) Pin the front, back and sides, evenly distributing the fabric. Finish pinning well and sew. Finish and press the seam.

16) Feed the elastic through the waistband with a bodkin or a hugemongous safety pin. Overlap the ends of the elastic by about an inch and secure it with a (normal sized) safety pin. Don't bother tucking the ends inside yet.

17) Now's the time to check the fit on your kid and also the length. Call them imperiously to you and tell them to drop their shorts. Haha. If they complain about trying it on, make them stand there longer than is strictly necessary while you pretend to dither about the length of the hem.*
*Parenting styles may vary.

18) If the fitting was great, sew as is. If you need to adjust the waist elastic, do that now.

19) Sew the overlapped ends of the elastic together. Pull it inside the waistband by stretching out the waistband. Pop! It disappears inside.

20) Zig zag stitch over the hem tape slit to close.

21) Hem the skirt 1 inch with a double fold 1/2 inch hem. (Or a different amount depending on your kid.) To do that, press 1 inch over to the wrong side, then fold it under itself and press. Edgestitch and you are done! Yay!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I made these two skirts in two afternoons, kind of working on them here and there.

My girls love these skirts. And each other. Deep, deep inside.

I need to make them one in plain chambray because that is such a versatile fabric. I might even take a crack at making myself one. No reason you can't make an adult-sized tiered skirt for yourself. Just make adjustments for your waist size and skirt length and use the same process. You'll probably need to use a longer stitch length for the ruffler. Love to see what you make!

Rapunzel hair recipe

Our witch and our Rapunzel had a lovely time. No handmade costumes this year, but some handmade hair. And the hair did get made on time, however, I recommend allowing more than an hour and a half to do it in. Which seems obvious, but I'm just addressing any fellow crazy procrastinators out there.

As I stood and contemplated the huge length of yarn on the floor, my daughter said maybe I should have just bought the pattern we saw at the store. I scoffed to myself. How hard can it be? Just a huge braid, right? Here's what I figured out:

Rapunzel hair recipe for kids:
Hugemongous one pound (16 oz) skein of yellow yarn
Two tall backed chairs, preferably heavy ones
Willing helpers (bribe with candy if necessary)
Spool of purple ribbon
Scissors

Place the two chairs side by side but a few feet apart, the overall distance from the edge of one chair back to the other being the length of the hair you will need. Mine was about five feet. Enough to go from your Rapunzel's head to her feet, knowing that braiding will take up some length. You can always trim it if it is too long.

Roll several feet of yarn off and cut it free. You'll use this to make ties. Tape the end of the remaining skein of yarn to one of the chair backs and start winding the yarn around the backs of the chairs. Tight enough not to sag a lot, but not too tight or the chairs will begin to tip toward each other. Now keep doing this until your skein of yarn is empty. This will take some time. This is where your helpers come in. Give them the yarn, show them what to do, and check on them every once in a while.

 

Feed a yarn tie under and around all the strands on one end and draw it up tightly, knotting it.

 

Carefully use the scissors to cut completely through the other untied end of the loop. Then straighten it out on the floor so the tie is in the middle like this:

Now have one of your helpers sit on one half of the hair on the floor while you braid the other half. Divide the half you are working on into three equal bunches, and lay them out on the floor. Start crossing one bunch over at a time, and put it down, keeping the lengths of yarn separated. Pick up the next section, cross it over, put it down, and so on. Keep combing through the yarn with your fingers as you braid to keep it smooth. Tie the braid off tightly at the end with more yarn. Trim as needed.

Have your helper sit on the braided half while you braid the other side. Same process.

Now you have two long braids that are connected at a part in the middle. Put that center part on your Rapunzel's forehead, wrapping the braids snugly around her head and crossing them in the back. Tie it tightly together there with a length of yarn.

Now weave the purple ribbon in. Unroll the whole spool. Poke it under and through the center part on the forehead and pull it through until you have half of the ribbon on each side. Now choose one section of the braid on each side and weave the ribbon to follow along it all the way to the end.

Once you reach the end of each braid, tie the two braids together with the ribbon ends. Then you can do like me and use the rest of the purple ribbon to go back up and weave the two braids together. You could also make a pretty bow at the bottom with the ribbon and use invisible ties of yarn to attach the two braids together in a few places.

If I had had the time, I might have tried to fill the hole in the back of the head with some kind of yellow fabric, but time didn't allow. Ideally, you could just use a yellow knit hat under the braid to give the illusion that it is a full wig. I offered to add some felt flowers to decorate the braids, but my Rapunzel declined.

After the costume was on, I smoothed my daughter's real hair (which is ironically very long, but oh no, Mom, it is not blond) back into a bun and then anchored the Rapunzel hair around her forehead and underneath the bun with long bobby pins. And it stayed put during Trick or Treating, despite much excited running and swinging of the hair.
 

And that is how I did it.

I have to confess that there were a few tense moments after the hair was completed, when my daughter announced that she had decided not to wear the Rapunzel wig. That I had just made. With much effort. At her request.

And I'd like to be able to say that I reacted calmly with a discussion about being considerate of others and properly appreciative of what is done for you. I really would. That discussion did happen in a few minutes, but I think my first reaction was more something like "Oh, you will be wearing the hair, and you will get happy about that or you will be staying home to hand out candy with Daddy." Hey. I'm not perfect.

But, as you can see for yourself in the photos, she came around about the hair and was very happy to wear it after all. Thank goodness.

denim skirts with tucks

Here are the skirts from the Santa shot. I stuck to my guns on the construction this time and didn't get distracted by the shiny ruffler. They just needed a plain layering jean skirt, however I could not resist adding some half inch tucks around the hem, because those are just so easy.


If you'd like to make a similar skirt, start with a simple pattern like this one. Instead of the ribbon hem, just do a traditional double folded hem.

To allow for 1/2 inch tucks, add an inch in skirt length for each tuck you take. Iron a crease on the right side where the tuck should bend, pin, then sew 1/2 inch away from the crease. Then after I iron it down I also sew the tuck down, very close to the existing seam.

I love the extra style it gives for the minimal time invested.


I also experimented with a new waist on one of them. I like the simplicity of the elastic-in-a-tube waist, but it tends to look bunchy in the front. I did a tube waist on Thing 1's but with Thing 2's skirt I attempted to copy something I've seen in store-bought skirts: the front having a smooth waistband attached to the gathered skirt, and the back waistband having elastic:


So I made the skirt length shorter since I didn't need to allow for the fold over waist, and added two rows of gathering stitches at the top where it would connect with the waistband. For the waistband I cut two additional pieces. Both were 3 inches wide and the same length, which was:

1/2 waist measurement + four inches

I did that because I wanted the front smooth part of the waistband to reach around her sides and the back elasticized part to start a bit around the back instead of right at the sides. I pressed both strips in half, wrong sides together.

I made one piece into a tube just by sewing a 1/2 inch seam on the right side and threaded it with a shorter piece of elastic inside (the length of the elastic was what was left after you subtract the length of the front piece from the waist measurement and then add back an inch for seam). I sewed the elastic in place on both ends, so that now I had a gathered tube with elastic inside, with raw edges on the bottom.

I pressed the raw edges of the flat piece under on either end to have a finished edge, and then I sewed the two pieces together on each end by tucking the elasticized piece inside the flat piece. Now I had a waistband that was the size of Thing 2's waist with some stretchy give in the back.



At this point I tried it on Thing 2 to make sure my math skillz were on target. It fit fine. So I pinned the waistband on the skirt right sides together and raw edges aligned, pulled the gathering stitches to fit and sewed it on with a half inch seam.



It came out great, but I'll do two things next time:

1. Use interfacing in the smooth waistband to add some body
   
2. Use a wider waistband, just for looks
   

one more headband

Here's the last one I made. It was under construction with the others but I wanted some brown for the band and didn't have any, so I got to watch the rest of the movie with both eyes. I finished it here at home.


She's trying to look grumpy but I made her laugh. Yes, you can go watch Fetch now.

scrap pile headbands

Me + Robyn + her prodigious scrap box + cheap headbands from the grocery store + The Lovely Bones = these headbands for our kids. I don't have a photo of hers - but trust me, it was very cute and it was being worn by a certain blonde fashionista almost immediately.



The process was so easy we were able to do it while keeping one eye on the movie and also shoveling in plates of pecan pie and ice cream. All that sugar really fuels the creativity.


Cut or tear a long thin strip of fabric (or use unfolded bias binding) and wrap it around the entire headband, using Fabritac to secure as you go.

Cut out concentric circles from various felted wools and fabrics to make a layered flower. Snip some petals if you like. Fold over circles into quarters to make many layered petals if you want a poofier look. Cut out some leaves to match. Glue the flower together, then glue the flower and leaves to the headband.

Don't fuss about the ravelly edges, that is part of the charm. You can use dabs of fraycheck if you like. Eat more pecan pie as a reward.


Then force your children to model them for your blog. Sometimes you have to make fake pootsy noises to lighten the mood.