Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Flip-Flop Market Skirt

I promised to post the market skirt I finished over the weekend.  I should put "finished" in quotes... I think I'm going to add another layer of ruffles... somehow this one seems a bit shorter than I imagine my little granddaughter would be wearing now.  Hopefully I'll be able to see her (and her parents) soon...  I miss them oodles.


I'm not sure if I explained before... but I've been using up some pretty ancient stash to make these market skirts.  I love this light blue fabric, and I've been using it up.  However, there was a spot or two on the cuts for this market skirt, and I thought it wouldn't show after I got it together.  Wrong.  So I thought about pockets for a minute, and I remembered seeing some cute outfits with flip flops on the bottom of them, like a border.  I decided to give that a shot.  My son drew a flip flop shape for me, and I proceeded to cut out the shapes with my scallop shears...




I stacked the print and the blue solid, and basted the shapes onto the skirt with a machine basting stitch.  Next was outlining the shape with yellow embroidery thread, using my machine's blanket stitch (it could have been any stitch) to give the flop some shape.


Next was the fun part..  making the toe sling (or whatever you call the part that goes between the toes).


I have an assortment of trims I picked up at a sale..with the g-baby girls in mind, and one was blue sequins.  Normally I "save" this for some undetermined occasion and never use it... hence my stash!  This time I brought out the 'bling'.  I could have just stitched it down, but being playful with it paid off.


This is the length of trim I was working with.
I centered the trim across the foot, where I thought the toe-piece should go.

I used the button stitch on my machine (a zig-zag stitch set a zero length works too) and
 placed a straight pin over the top of my presser foot to sort of create
a 'shank' where the toe piece would be.



Here is a closer view of what I mean.





another view



After that, I removed the basting stitch and added another row of blanket stitches (this time in blue) to give the flip-flop
a little more ump and secure the outside ends of the sequin trim.



I AM seriously considering adding another ruffle to the bottom of this skirt.  I'm out of the cute yellow and blue fabric, I may have enough of the blue for another ruffle for the bottom... maybe I'll add some more bling... (or should I save the trim for something else???)  heh heh


UPDATE:  I did.. I did add another ruffle in co-coordinating fabric.



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