Sewing (and, therefore, ironing) in the summer without air conditioning — not so fun.  But light, bright summer skirts, now that is fun!

Lately the concept of napping has become a battleground with my toddler. He turns three next month and is eager to shed his afternoon nap in order to stay up and play. The problem is, he still desperately needs the nap and ends up in a heap of whining and crabbiness when he refuses nap time. It’s an ugly scene that puts the whole family on edge, and unfortunately the scene has been on replay too frequently as of late. He actually napped a couple times over the past few days, and even more miraculously, his nap time aligned with the baby’s. So, despite the heat, I was able to catch some sewing time to help restore my sanity. There’s nothing like sewing away at the machine with the feeling of sweat running down your chest.  (Sorry for planting that image in your head.)

Easy skirts just seemed like the way to go.  A quick project, fun prints and a little something that dresses up a plain onesie for the baby.  And the project was made even easier with the use of Dritz colored elastic, which brought extra color to the skirt and eliminated the need for an elastic casing. I had never sewn fabric directly to elastic before, so it took a little adjustment.  Since I was stretching the elastic (both in front and in back of the needle) as I was stitching it to the skirt body, I found that I would end up with little “hiccups” each time I moved my hands to stretch a new section.  (You can see what I mean in the picture at the top.)  Not a critical flaw, but also not a nice, clean straight line of stitches.  Nothing I can’t overcome with more practice, hopefully.  For the meantime, matching my thread color as closely as possible to the elastic color helps minimize the distraction.

I started with a circle skirt using the great little baby circle skirt tutorial from Dana’s MADE site.

I purchased the multi-color seersucker fabric at Joann’s last summer, when I was pregnant, in anticipation of making something summery and girly for the baby this year. It worked especially well for the circle skirt since it was so light. It seems to give the skirt even more bounce.

 I simply serged the bottom of the skirt but didn’t bother to hem it.  The casual look fit the fabric.

Just like Dana warns, this project is easy and fun, and you’ll find you want to keep making more and more circle skirts after you try it.

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See what I mean? I forced myself to stop at two — for now. I drew from my stash of Amy Butler fabric for this one.

For the second circle skirt, I took the extra step of hemming the skirt after serging, for a cleaner, finished look. I think this will be the perfect skirt for the baby to wear to a family get-together this weekend to meet my cousin’s new baby boy!

I was clearly in a yellow-orange mood when making the circle skirts! Does that happen to you? Sometimes I go shopping for fabric or clothes and don’t realize until the end of the trip that most of my purchases are in the same color family.

I indulged in one more skirt. And another Amy Butler print.

This one is a simple gathered waist skirt, using two rectangles to form the front and back. Stitch up the sides, gather the waist, sew the waist to the elastic, stitch the hem, done.

Slap one of these skirts on over a onesie and baby looks colorfully cute while staying cool in the summer heat.

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