here is Em posing like a boss in hawaii with her pink pool noodle, wearing a skirt full of alligators!

the fabric is tammis keefe tribute later alligator by michael miller, which i picked up at bolt. tammis keefe was a pretty cool lady, you can learn more about her here. i got the fabric when it first came out, and this skirt has been an unfinished object for a long time! i don’t actually have many of those floating around; i tend to finish what i start or it bugs me, but i think i cut this one and sewed the center back seam during a KCWC (maybe last spring?) and never finished it. luckily, i cut it long enough that it still fits my little beanpole.

i used the oliver + s free lazy days skirt pattern. i know i’ve mentioned my love for that pattern before; it was my first sewing project when i started to sew as an adult. i’ve made many since. it’s an easy sew, but has a lot of style. it made me fall in love with making clothes for my kids, liesl gibson commented on my flickr photo which made my stomach do flip flops, and i became quickly addicted to both sewing and the sewing blog community. this little free skirt pattern probably changed my life. sappy? overly dramatic? true.

there is one change i make when i sew these skirts: when i first pin the ribbon to the skirt, i align the long edges with each other rather than placing the top edge of the ribbon 1/2″ above the raw fabric edge as instructed. i sew the top edge of the ribbon per the pattern, then trim away all but 1/4″ of the skirt edge before folding the ribbon over to the right side and stitching the other long edge. i think this small change just makes it even easier for a beginner and saves time, because you’re not fiddling with making sure the floating ribbon is right where it should be. you could also simply mark your fabric 1/2″ from the edge with disappearing marker/chalk to guide your pinning and follow the pattern exactly, if your ribbon is so wide you’re worried your sizing might be thrown off by aligning the edges.

as i sewed this skirt, however, Em claimed she didn’t like it. i was bummed but didn’t totally believe her (because of the pink ribbon and the fact that “never smile at a crocodile” from peter pan is her jam). but while we were in hawaii, she picked it out to wear multiple days in a row! yay! she actually doesn’t want to wear skirts very often these days – only dresses – so i was pretty relieved.

finally, to wrap up what is turning out to be a more emotional post about a skirt than i intended, i want to put in a plug for “skirting the issue,” which is a great new series going on in the month of july from liz and elizabeth, the ladies in charge of project run & play. they are pulling together as many skirts as they can from the greater sewing blog community to donate to girls in foster care around the country. i’ll be posting a fun skirt tutorial later this month on the project run & play blog, but if you would like to sew for a great cause, the lazy days skirt is a great project (especially if you’re a beginner, someone that has a sewing machine but has never used it, or a mother of boys that needs a little girl sewing in her life! if you can thread your machine, you can make a lazy day skirt). find out more about skirting the issue here.

okay that’s all. late night slightly jet lagged blogging for the win!