Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Wedding Crinoline into Dress Up Skirt Tutorial

Princess is outgrowing most of her dressup clothes but definitely hasn't outgrown the desire to play dress-up yet. She has always been tall for her age and now, at age 6, is 51.5 inches tall--yes, she's a tall one! She is in kindergarten but looks as though she should be in third grade. The dress up clothes that fit her as a three year old no longer work.
While browsing at a thrift shop, I came across a bridal slip on the rack and thought, with a bit of tweaking, it would be perfect for my little girl. It had a small hole in the bottom tier of the skirt which made me happy because I was able to get the price knocked down even lower--I think I paid about $2 for this slip!
I brought it home and, after washing it in the machine and letting it air dry, I cut off the top of the slip--this slip had an elastic band at the top and a long zipper. I cut it off just below the zipper. I didn't do a very good job cutting it at all!
Nice jagged edge! I told you I didn't do a good job cutting it! My next step was to pin the inside and outside layers together. This stuff was slippery! Then I used my sewing machine to sew a straight line around the edge to keep those layers together. Next it was time to deal with that hole in the bottom tier.
First I cut it out. (Please note that I redeemed my cutting skills on this part...nice straight cuts!)
Then I stitched the opening closed and sewed over the little tab of extra fabric at the top.
No more hole for my children to "accidentally" rip and make bigger...and bigger...and bigger... This extra line of stitching will get lost in all the pouf of the slip.
My final step was to fold over the fabric at the top of the slip and make a spot for the elastic to go in. As I mentioned before, this fabric was slippery and I have no experience sewing or pinning this kind of stuff. I just folded it and sewed a straight line. I left an opening for the elastic and threaded it through (I already knew my daughter's waist measurement from some skirts I made for her) and then sewed my loop of elastic shut and then sewed the opening shut. That was it!
And that was it! One bridal slip turned into an extra twirly dress-up skirt for a very excited little girl!
Yes, she loves it!
(I'm not sure why it looks bunchy in this picture--it looks great in real life!)

Here is when I realized that I have my own bridal slip just.like.this.one. upstairs in the closet taking up space. ARGH. Can you dye these? Maybe I can dye mine pink and make another twirly skirt for dressup? Hmm...

6 comments:

Darlene said...

Cute, CUTE!! Looks like she has a tiny, tiny waist just like Lexi. I have told her she is going to HAVE to gain a bit of weight to fit in jeans for next year. It is quite difficult to get a small enough waist with a long enough length!

Amy said...

very cute

Anonymous said...

my youngest would flip over these! great job!!!

Trish said...

How cute!

Anonymous said...

Excellent work done. Would you mind me posting a link of this article on my website? It will be helpful to my visitors also.And yes i have bookmarked your site frillsfluffandtrucks.blogspot.com .

frillsfluffandtrucks said...

Hello "Anonymous"

I couldn't reply directly to you, so hopefully you'll check back on this post. You are welcome to link to my post, however I request that you do not copy and paste my post--I prefer my work to remain on my site.

Thanks!
Sarah