Twirly Skirt Tutorial

I know this is my hair blog, but I ran into a follower and one of my girls was wearing one of these skirts with a cute white sweater and a coordinating headband. She asked if I would share. Here you go!

Threeish years ago, we had to have outfits for a Pioneer parade and I had NOTHING for my girls to wear, so the night before I grabbed some calico I had sitting around and made your basic, gathered floor length skirt for each one of my girls and a basic white apron. It worked for the time and through some tweaking, it has evolved into a fun skirt my girls love to wear. We go to the fabric store and I hear "I would love THIS for a skirt, Mom!!!" Since I am a sucker for fun things for my kids to wear, I happily oblige.

And as a disclosure, I don't like sewing with patterns and I have no idea what I am doing at all. I just get an idea in my head and I start cutting and sewing. I couldn't tell you what a bias is to save my life. Don't judge, mmmkthx.



First I head to my favorite fabric store...side note, I just found the BEST fabric store by where we are currently living. They sell Moda AND Amy Butler! If they carried Heather Bailey, my life would be complete! Okay, back to the tut. I buy a yard of my base fabric, and then 12 inches of a coordinating fabric. Then I measure it on my girl. Usually it ends up being half a yard that I use. For the smaller kids I shorten that. Hence the problem of not using a pattern. Also make sure that you add on about 3 inches for the casing.

I then cut two lengths of fabric for the main body of the skirt from selvage to selvage.

And I repeat with the coordinating fabric. I cut it six inches.

Fold the coordinating pieces of fabric in half and press.

The place the raw side of the coordinating fabric to the right side of the body material.

Sew.

I use a straight stitch. If you had a serger... which I do but it is currently somewhere in two vast storage units whereabouts unknown...You would serge this part together and then straight stitch next to the serged edge. Instead, I have trimmed it with pinking sheers.

Unfold the two pieces and repeat with the other two pieces.

(I didn't actually trim this one with the sheers because it was late on Saturday and when you are thinking "Dang, my girls have nothing to wear to church tomorrow" and it's midnight, well, sometimes you forget things.)

Then press the fabrics flat.

Now, I take and put the two pieces together. The front and back if you will. Right sides together. Then I sew in just over an inch from the selvage. Start from the bottom to make sure your coordinating fabric joints match up.

Like so.

Then trim...or serge.

Now I measure around my daughters waist. I pull the elastic snug and then overlap by half an inch.

Then I make the casing. On the top of the skirt, I fold down the raw edge, depending on how close my fabric is on either side determines the first fold of the casing. That is why I go three inches, because I am not an accurate seamstress and I need to leave room for error. I make one fold and press it down, then I fold that first fold over and measure how much room I have for my elastic and press the second fold down. You can see the press marks in the above picture.

I have plenty of room for the elastic.

Next, I sew a straight stitch around the top of the casing. This step isn't necessary, however I have learned that it keeps the elastic from twisting and makes for a prettier top.

Then I sew the bottom half of the casing, leaving a two to three inch opening.

Like so.

Then take two safety pins and attach one end of the elastic to the fabric and attach the other safety pin to the other end of the elastic.

Then thread the elastic through the casing.

I pull my lead out and attach it to the other safety pin while I even out the fabric as much as I can before sewing it up.

I overlap my elastic by an inch and a half and sew a square around the edges and an X from corner to corner.

Then I pull the skirt and stuff that elastic up into the casing.

Pull the casing flat and sew. Remember to back stitch.

Spread the fabric evenly and VOILA! You have a super easy, fun skirt.

It only takes me 20-30 minutes to make one of these puppies and we have tons of them now. Hopefully these instructions make sense. Let me know if you have any questions!

With a couple of tweaks, you can do so many things with this skirt. I have done an overlay and and under skirt. I have made a plain edge without the coordinating fabric and just hemmed it. I have wanted to sew strips together and make a striped skirt with the coordinating fabric on the bottom, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. My friend thinks it would be darling to put belt loops on the casing and thread a ribbon through. I agree with her.

Next tutorial, the super easy headband.

Golden Globes Hair---Nancy O'Dell

This is the look we are going for...now, to be fair, this is a delicate hairstyle. It works FANTASTIC on my oldest, who is a little less...um...playful. Playful is a good word for it.



We modified it a bit for my little girl who can't stop on putting dress-up or hiding under rugs in IKEA. This is pre-crimping. Don't cringe when I say crimping. This is not that horrid triangle iron you had in 1987, this is a great 3-barrel curling iron. Don't shoot me when I say this, but DO NOT buy the cheap knock-offs of a 3-barrel curling iron found at big box stores!!!! I KNOW THIS FROM EXPERIENCE! Just don't, K! The more expensive ones have a center that lifts up, where as the cheapy's do not, and that my friend MAKES ALL OF THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD!!!

Yeah, I was a skeptic too, until one of our ultra-cool babysitters corrected the error of my ways. The cheapy was given to Goodwill where someone else will have to learn from my experience.

Remember THIS twist? You'd better, because that is the only way you will be able to do this very exact hairstyle! (As a side note, the model in that tut is a year older and looks it! Happy Birthday Lana!)

Spray the hair with hairspray (a very important step) and just use the curling iron as instructed in the manual. It takes time to get used to it, I still struggle.

As you can see in this picture, I pulled out some of the hair above where the two twists meet. You don't have to do this, it looks darling without it. I was just going for Nancy O'Dell. On a four-year old. A child who is 100% static by the end of the day.

And there you go!

Hollywood Hair...Jennifer Aniston at the Oscars

I have a secret. I watch the Oscars and Emmy's. Not to see who wins, but to see their hair. Last night's favorite was Jennifer Aniston. She was beautiful! LOVED her hair, it wasn't over done or swept back into an updo that wasn't her at all. It was simple and fresh.



This morning we did her style on my oldest. She is getting past the point of piggies and wants her hair down and older (WAH!) so this style fit the bill.



All we did was part the hair at an angle from above her eye to her crown. About an inch and a half up the part, I parted her hair again to the other side. I pulled the extra hair into a ponytail so I didn't inadvertently pull excess into the French braid. I sprayed the hair with water and hairspray and braided down like so. I secured the braid with an elastic and then to make sure it didn't move, I threaded a bobby pin through the elastic and up through the underside of the braid.







Then I pulled the ponytail out and ran my flat-iron through pieces of her hair to give it some "UMPH"

How'd we do?

Coming up next:

Nancy O'Dells Golden Globes Hair

Vanessa Hudgens

Hearts take three

I can't go off and enjoy all of the lovey dovey romance I have planned for my family without leaving you with one final style.

Super simple, remember those twists I did a couple of posts down? Simply do the same thing, only make sure that your final twist goes away from the crown. The secret here is in the parting. Start in the middle of the head and swoop forward in a curve towards the ears. Twist and secure and tie a romantic ribbon to the bottom. I should have grabbed a picture, but she is wearing some of her sisters babylegs that are black and pink stripes with hearts. LOVING the hearts!!!



Happy Valentine's Day!
XOXOXO

Stephanie

Sharing your hearts

Thank you all so much for the wonderful comments about the hearts. I appreciate each and every one of them.

I have received some e-mails with pictures of some of the hearts you have come up with. Keep them coming! I want to see how many heart hairstyles I can get on this post!

This first one is from my friend that I have had since we were sophomores in high school. Our timing on everything is pretty consistent. Weddings were 20 days apart (she was my maid of honor, I her matron), first and last babies were within weeks of each other, we even live four miles apart. I love her. This is her sweet chocolate covered K girl. Look at how cute her hair is! She did the knot the opposite way of normal and proceeded to do a heart with little clips! Brilliant! It gives you so much control over the shape of the heart!





Thanks Itybtyfrog!

Next is one I received from Kelly. She tried the heart on her little Jillian. SO cute! Next time I will try the hot pink ribbon! I love the way it makes her hair POP!




Ammy had a great idea if you don't have a long enough ribbon, just twist the halves into ropes and secure into a ponytail! SO CUTE!





Perfect timing! My sweet little neighbor Naomi came over to give Tess a Valentine and I snagged a picture of her on my front porch. She looks so cute with the snow melting on her hair. Her mom pulled all of her hair into a ponytail and did an upside down knot and then rope twisted the hair and held it into place with cute little clippies! Thanks Naomi and Kera! (Kera does all sorts of fun things with her daughters hair...you will probably be seeing some more of her ideas regularly on here).



Check out how cute this one is! Becky did a puffy braid heart with just the top portion of the hair. Darling!



Cindy has been super busy with her daughter Paige. These are TWO heart hairstyles they have done recently. SO CUTE! Thanks ladies!




Debbee did a beautiful heart framing her daughters pretty blonde hair. Thanks Debbee!



Keep those pictures coming ladies! It does my heart good! Blackeyedsue2@gmail.com

Miss Tess as Fancy Nancy

A while back, Tess was invited to a Fancy Nancy Gala with some of her best girls. She needed to get all dolled up and wanted her hair the way Nancy wears it way up high on her head. We had a problem, the underside of Tess's hair is short...way too short to be pulled up so high without most of it falling down within an hour.

A concocting we went.

First I combed most of her hair as high as it would go and I parted it across her hair from earlobe to earlobe. I pulled that section into a ponytail and flipped it into a knot where the hair came out the top instead of the bottom.



Then I parted another section from the top of the ear to the top of the other ear and pulled it into a ponytail as well. I also picked up the first ponytail and put it in with this new ponytail. Before I secured it with an elastic, I pulled some pieces out. Then I flipped that ponytail into a knot as well.



I pulled the rest of the hair and this ponytail together. As before, I pulled pieces out of the ponytail and secured the ponytail WAY up high.



Now, curl all of those pieces that you left hanging down. Just so you know, the bottom pieces when we did it THIS time were a little wonky. The first time I did this, I left longer pieces down, which is what I would advise doing.



Now, add your elastic tied with a bunch of organza ribbon (or bow or whatever is FANCY in your house) and fluff all of those curls.