Ballet Skirts

2 skirts in an hour? 3 rows of stitching each? I wish skirts for me were this easy.

Vaguely based on this tutorial from Dana Made It, following kiddo measurements from this downloadable size chart at Sugar Tart Crafts (since I don't have easy access to my nieces to measure them). I ended up having to tighten the elastic on one of them, but otherwise the measurements worked for me.

The fabric is this striped ballet quilting cotton from Belleboo. Quite twee for my taste (I do not aime le ballet), but I knew my nieces would be all over it. 

And they were, although, wow, it's hard to get photos of little kids. New found respect for all those sewists out there getting professional looking shots of their kids!

Zoe's "cheese" face (?):

Anna always on the go:

Pantalones!

I went on a bit of a kiddo pants-making spree this week.  Here are the results:

Made by Rae's Big Butt Baby Pants (also made here, here, here and here) in batik (same batik as my Hammer pants) with a shirt-striped butt panel for Tim's soon-to-pop colleague:

Super cute shirt-striped Big Butt Baby Pants with up-cycled (from an old, ill-fitting dress of mine) chambray ruffles on the butt... pretty freaking adorable, these guys.  The photo does not really do them justice:

And another pair of Dana Made It's Kid Pants... this time made from chambray (also upcycled from my old dress, see above), sans pockets, but with contrasting top-stitching (pink!).  Some good basic pants to have in your wardrobe.  And no, I cannot explain why they are so wrinkly, given that I had just ironed them:

Kid Pants with Piped Edge Pockets

Ermagerd, I love these pants!  And I am pretty proud of them, too.

These are the Kid Pants from Dana Made It, a free (and pretty awesome!) downloadable wide leg pants pattern (size 2-3T).  I had also used the pattern earlier this summer to make Z some Retro Racer Shorts.

This time I used a pretty pink, fine wale corduroy from Joann's that is covered in little button flowers (which kinda reminded me of my old employer's logo, which may have prompted me to buy it.  also it was on clearance.).  The fabric is super soft.  I used store-bought piping, which is not a perfect match to the fabric, but close enough for government work ;-)

I used Dana's pocket pattern (the larger size) and sewed some piping along the edges of the pockets as Dana did in this tutorial, to make them stand out:

I placed the pockets such that they continued over the top of the waistband (which I made flat-front, per Dana's instructions here).  The back waistband is still elasticized:

 

I top-stitched all of the seams for strength and some contrasting color, although the top-stitching sank into the nap of the corduroy a bit.

Love these pants!  Can't wait to see Z in them!