Well, well, well...look what the cat drug in!

Haha! Me of course! I have been MIA for awhile I was busy making TWO pettiskirts for the girls Halloween costumes. Let me tell ya I now remember why I vowed never to make one again. They take ALOT of time and patience. The later I dont have much of lately.

I did not do a tute on them however because there are so many amazing ones floating around out there in blogland. Like here, here, and here. The skirts are relatively straight forward and simple just time consuming because there is so much yardage involved.

I purchased my yardage from a lovely little lady on etsy of course who I've purchased nylon chiffon from before because NO ONE in Tucson actually carries nylon chiffon. AH! She will sell you yardage, cut it and/or ruffle it for you or even make it for you. But the most cost effective way is to just purchase yardage from her. I got 10 (5 for each) yards for $33! Which makes it about $3.30/yard plus shipping. Not bad! Not bad at all!

I did learn a few things since last year when I made them.

1. Work from the bottom up.

Start adding the ruffles to the bottom tier first. Then add the bottom tier (with ruffles attached) to the top tier. Finally add the top tier to the waistband. It cuts down significantly on the pile hanging out on the side of your sewing machine while trying to make sense of what is actually going through the machine to be sewn.

2. Dont stitch the tier closed until you've stitched it to the other layer.

That way if you have too much you can just cut it off. You don't have to worry about gathering it tighter to make it fit onto the other layer. SO you only join the tiers together in a circle at the very end. Makes it much easier trust me!

3. Ruffle everything first if you are using a ruffler foot.

That way you aren't wasting precious time switching between feet. Which on my machine means completely removing the shank that the foot fits into.

Next up, Hailey's Queen of Hearts dress! My goal: to be finished with it by next Sunday. We'll see since obviously I missed my goal of Wednesday for pettiskirts....

Love and Hugs,