Gotta do something about that yard...

Today was an unseasonably warm and beautiful day here in Texas (especially considering that it's been raining for the 3 days prior to that). I took my 3-year-old outside with me while I relaxed in the sunshine, and let him run around and play. Looking at my awful yard, I decided that it's time to do something about it.

We've been living in this house for 3 years, and we haven't done anything with the yard yet. It doesn't even have any grass (it's a very shady yard, with lots of oak trees in our and our neighbors' yards, and it's hard to get grass growing).

I'm going to start with a little bit of side yard on the north side of the house. It's been buried under dried leaves ever since we moved in... yikes! I raked them all out today, and found the remnants of silk flowers that the bizarre previous owner had "planted" there. Um, okay.

Over the next couple weeks, I'm going to figure out what I want to put there. I lost my measuring tape (hahaha) but I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 4'x8'. Not very large, but I think it's big enough for me to put some sort of decorative object, and accent plants around it. Whatever it is would have to be able to grow in the full shade.

The before (the 'after' will come this spring):



After I took the photo, I tore out all that monkey grass, and raked out enough of the dirt and leaves along the edge to expose the landscaping timber that borders the little area. I hate monkey grass, but I think liriope (another decorative grass) is more attractive. This stuff was in bad shape and needed to be torn out anyway.

Trapezoid skirt is finished

I finished my skirt a lot sooner than I thought... thanks to my kids being distracted by Spongebob on TV last night, and my youngest taking an early nap today.

The tedious part is pinning on all the extra-wide double-fold bias tape. In doing so, I discovered the importance of checking the packages to make sure they all all from the same dye lot. I purchased 3 packages a couple weeks ago, and they all had the same color and item code and all that. But I pinned on the first two packages of bias tape, and when I pulled out the third, I noticed that it was stiffer and was darker shade than the other two! I checked all the packages to make sure they were all the same, but then I turned them all over and saw that there was a number stamped on beneath the barcode/UPC, and one was different... guess it must be the dye lot. But the color difference isn't noticeable unless you examine the hem really close.

Anyway, here is my finished skirt, in the best possible picture my camera phone is capable of taking.

Puttin' it all together

Today I started pinning all the pieces of my tiered trapezoid skirt together. I have 5 different fabrics, so I laid them (in stacks) in the order I thought they would look best in. Then I pinned together the first tier (9 pieces), the 2nd tier (18) and the 3rd (36). It took me about 30 minutes to do, which included stopping a couple times to answer text messages from my husband and my sister. And stopping twice to get a tissue because I have a stupid cold!

I think it's looking pretty good so far. I think I can sew together pieces of each tier tomorrow, and *maybe* sew the tiers together. It all actually goes together pretty quickly, but I have so many other things to do... and the spring semester starts this week, which is going to drastically cut into my hobby time. I'll try to get 1/2 hour of sewing in 2-3 times a week, to help my sanity. :) Too bad my textbook doesn't come in audio format, LOL.

Future skirt projects

Okay, so earlier today I posted a skirt tutorial. I have plans for a few more skirts, and I want to share the fabrics I've selected.

These are the prints I am making the current skirt out of. Purchased from Hobby Lobby. I found two lovely tees from JCP that match the shades of cafe brown and pale pink in this fabric, so that's cool. It will be trimmed with pale pink bias tape.



These are fat quarters that I purchased from Hobby Lobby. They came in packs of 5 for $9.99, and I bought two. With 10 fat quarters, I can make a skirt to fit a 28" waist... I can hang on to it for when I finally get down to that size (with my running program), or I can give it to a friend. Harlequin, paisley, polka dot... oh my!



And these are "upcycled linen fat quarters"... vintage sheets that someone cut into fat quarters. I bought them off Etsy, and the seller had two identical sets of 6. So that's 12 fat quarters. I think this will make a perfect summer skirt!!! I'm still waiting for the fabric to arrive in the mail, actually. Maybe some ruffled eyelet along the bottom edge would look nice? Or maybe silly. I don't know, I'll have to try it out when I actually make the skirt.



But I still have other skirt projects I've been wanting to make, and haven't gotten around to yet. Several months ago I bought the Stella Strip Skirt pattern from Sew Serendipity. I also bought a jelly roll of "Hill Country Spring" fabric on Etsy, along with some chocolate brown paisley fabric to go with it. I think it'll look somewhat like the brown & colored skirt on the upper right hand corner of the pattern cover. I have made one strip skirt with this pattern and liked it, but it needs to be ironed to look its best, and it's very time-consuming... which is why I haven't started on another one yet. Maybe someday.

"Twirly Trapezoid" Skirt tutorial

I recently came across a really cool Tumbler Skirt Tutorial that I just had to make. I must give most of the credit to the original tutorial author, but I am re-writing it here for adult sizes (as the original skirt fits a little girl).

Here is a skirt I made this week. Sorry for the poor image quality, I took the pic with my cellphone, which is the only camera I have right now.



This skirt is made of trapezoid-shaped quilt blocks, with the finished bottom width of each piece being twice that of the finished top width. The size of trapezoid quilt blocks I prefer to use are 4" wide at the top, 7.5" wide at the bottom, and 7.5" long. This is just a teensy bit tricky to explain; when each row of quilt blocks is stitched together, the narrow tops of two quilt blocks will be stitched to the wider bottom of one quilt block in the row above it. Each row has twice as many quilt blocks as the one above it. With a 1/4" seam allowance on each side, the finished width of these quilt blocks will be 3.5" at the top, and 7" at the bottom.

The reason I decided to go with this size of quilt block is because you can get 6 blocks out of a one-quarter yard length of 44/45" wide fabric (flipped side-by-side across the width)... or out of one fat quarter (2 rows of 3 each).

Now, to figure out how many quilt blocks you need, measure your waist, and divide this number by 3.5". Round up to the next whole number. This is how many blocks will be in the top tier. Each row has twice as many blocks as the one above it, so you need to multiply this number by 7 (1+2+4) to find the total number of quilt blocks.

Example: my waist is 30".
30 ÷ 3.5 = 8.57, rounded up = 9.
9 × 7 = 63 quilt blocks.
Divide this number by 6 to find the number of 1/4 yd lengths or fat quarters you will need. For my example, I will need 11 quarter-yard lengths of fabric or 11 fat quarters to make my skirt. Or, if I want to use fabric scraps I already have, I could scrounge around until I find enough to make 63 pieces. Any extra bit of fabric can be used to make a matching headband, or decorative fabric flowers.

For the skirt I am making here, I bought 1/2 yard each of 4 coordinating fabrics, and 3/4 yd of a 5th coordinating fabric, to make my 11 quarter-yard pieces. (I have a stack of fat quarters waiting to be made into another skirt sometime in the future).

*Note: the finished length of this skirt is 21". You can make the skirt any length you want by lengthening the pieces, but this will affect the length of fabric you will need. Go longer than 8" (1/4 yd is 9" but I am including shrinkage allowance) and you will need more than 1/4 yd for each length of fabric, or you can't get the 6 pieces out of fat quarters. You could always make more tiers, but that would make for an extremely full skirt- this one is already 240" wide at the hem- and it will mean a lot more fabric, a lot more quilt blocks, and a lot more sewing. Just play around with the numbers, and cut test pieces out of scrap paper to try out the layout.

Cut a trapezoid template out of paper, to use for cutting out your pieces. I highly recommend a cutting mat and rotary cutter, but you can always trace the shapes with a pencil and cut them out with scissors.

If there is a white strip of selvege along the edge of the fabric, go ahead and cut it off. Line the template up against one end of the fabric.



Line up your straight cutting edge along the sides of the template piece. Cut off the scrap piece at the very end, and discard. Cut out the quilt block, being careful not to cut the template piece itself, and don't let the straight edge shift.



Next, flip the template upside-down and line it up against the new edge of the fabric. (Have I mentioned that it's best to have a fabric without a one-way design? Well, now I have).



Continue until you have all your pieces cut out, and have fun arranging the sequence you'd like them to be in.

Start stitching the pieces for the top tier together, but do not stitch it into a full circle yet... leave the last seam undone so you can insert the zipper. Continue with the 2nd and 3rd tiers.

Attach the bottom of the first tier to the top of the second tier, matching the seams of the top tier with every other seam on the second tier. You may need to ease the fabric a bit, because it may be slightly off (as happens to me, haha). Repeat to attach the 2nd tier to the 3rd tier.

Sew the "back" seam from the bottom, up to the seamline where the 1st and 2nd tier meet. Insert the zipper on the first tier, following the manufacturer's directions.

The *easiest* way to fit the skirt at the top is to make a little dart on each side of the waist edge. For example, if I make the skirt for a 30" waist, the finished top edge will be around 31.5". I'd leave 1/2" for ease, and make a little 1/4" dart on a seam at each side (which would take 1/2" off each side, for a total of 1").

I found that the easiest way (for me) to finish the skirt was to bind the edges with extra-wide double fold bias tape, in a coordinating color. I used 3 packages; they are 3 yards long each, and the bottom hem was almost 7 yards wide. This gave me enough to use around the bottom hem, with enough left over to bind the waistband edge. Attach a hook & eye to the waistband trim. You can also finish the hem by folding it under about 1/4", but it may be a little tricky. I prefer the look of the bias tape.

I will update this tutorial with a few more construction photos sometime in the next couple weeks, as I finish making the skirt with the quilt blocks I am cutting out in the above photos. I finished the pink & black & white skirt earlier today, and was so pleased with how it came out, that I decided to quickly throw this tutorial together. I am at the end of winter break right now, and getting ready for college to start again next week, so I'm trying to finish this skirt along with 100 other things around the house.