Sewing simple ~dress to skirt

This post is in honor of my little Lou Lou and her love for skirts.

Sewing simple projects is definantly where my skill level is right now. I have tried a few sewing tutorials online but truth is I have bombed out. I am such a visual learner and so I love the tutorials but for some reason I have had a hard time with the sewing tuts.  So and I have deciced to post my simple beginner projects for those who are in the same boat as me..we can learn together.  I tend to post lots of pics because as I said I am so visual.

A pink skirt ~ My middle girl has a pink skirt that she wears every moment she can. It is beginning to look rather shabby to my eyes but not to little Lou Lous.  I am determined to sew my girls twirly, frillly skirts and replace Lou Lou's pink twirly skirt with something spectacular.. however until that day I decided to 'use what I had' and lots of love and this is what I came up with.

        From dress to another pink skirt

Below is the tut on how I went from dress to skirt. It really is so simple and could be done by hand stitch easily.



The first step is to cut off the top part of the dress.

I used this dress because it is too short for Lou Lou but it is an empire waist so the top part is short leaving the bottom part to be longer and perfect for a skirt. I cut at the top seam, it made it clean and accurate.

Here it is cut into a skirt and folded over twice. I then pinned it and lightly stiched it so that when I sewed it on my machine it I could follow the line easily.

The skirt has been sewn and I left an opening to fit the eleastic through. 
I pinned the safety pin to the end of the elastic and worked it around the skirt.

Here is the elastic all the way through.
Then I pulled the elastic according to how tight I thought it needed to be for my daughter's waist.

After I pulled the elastic to the right elasticity I then cut the excess elastic and sewed the two pieces together. I then went and sewed up the opening.

I have a ribbon box. Ribbon is fairly easy to buy here on the open market and it is inexpensive.  I had this on hand from another project so I put it to use.  I pinned it all around the edging.
I always pin everything.  I need to in order to be accurate.  Funny thing is however I am so not detailed..and learning to sew is a challenge for me sometimes because things need to be done a certain way in order to look good. So I have to adhere to the rules I guess. :)

Time to sew it on and then cut off any excess ribbon.

Figured I might as well use the sweet little flowers from the top.



I choose to put the  flowers towards the bottom of the skirt ..and tada it is finished. 
Fun thing is it only took me part of my evening and now I am looking at the dresses from last summer and wondering what other ones would be good canidates for a skirt makeover. 

Now I have done my mommy duty and provided another pink skirt for Little Lou Lou so she doens't look like a ragamuffin. Yippe.. P.s. She loves it.

I think one of my favorite things is seeing my kids use, wear or play with the creations I have made for them or we have made together. Being a mom is not for those faint of heart and being able to give to my children creavtivly helps me to enjoy them as the grow and change and give into each of their intersts.

~ all for now..from the west corner.
becky