No good deed goes unpunished

I was really looking forward to a weekend of sewing.  We had no plans or need to go out of town and beyond a trip for groceries, I had free reign to plan on sewing up some fabric from my stash.  My plans didn't even make it to Saturday before being turned upside down.  11:00pm on Friday night, Thing 2 has a fever.  I had no doubts how my Saturday was going to play out.  By 2:00am, he and I were camped out in a recliner in the living room.  It was like trying to sleep with a bad cross between a furnace and a Koala bear.  Clingy and oh so hot!  I managed, through a very cooperative hubs, to get in the trip to rescue this week's groceries, but that was the highlight of my day.  The rest of the day was spent napping/snuggling with my cranky little bear.  His fever finally broke around 4pm, but I was too exhausted to even work on the easiest of sewing projects.  The extent of my creative ventures was browsing Pinterest.

Not so basic math.
 Thank goodness for calculators!

By Sunday morning, Thing 2 was feeling much better and with the hubs at work, I got a surprising extra hour of sleep.  Go me!  After getting us around, I handled some of the basic household chores that were neglected on Saturday.  That out of the way, I knew my remaining level of concentration wasn't going to handle anything difficult, but I still wanted to get some sewing in.  Pinterest to the rescue.  One of the things I'd found on Saturday was a maxi/twirly skirt from a blog called Delilah Creates that I knew Thing 1 would love.  I pulled up the tutorial and groaned.  It required basic math.  I wasn't sure my brain was up to basic math, even with the assistance of a calculator, but I gave it a whirl anyway.

2 yards should be enough, right?

Calculations in hand, I rummaged through my stash and pulled out 2 yards of white on white print quilting cotton.  I couldn't even begin to guess at why I had it, much less when I bought it.  We'll say it's a good 7 years or better old and was probably bought for some quilting project I'd seen.  I ran the iron over it and having used up all my brain power to conquer the math problem, I knew cutting straight lines was asking for trouble.  I opted to clip the fabric every 6 1/2 inches down the length and tear the strips.

7 layers, edges serged.  Probably should
have pressed them at this point.

Following the instructions, I serged my way through creating seven bands.  It wasn't until I was stitching in the final band that I realized I had inverted one piece, so the top band has one half of the band sewn in inside out.  I considered redoing the strip, but I'd already tucked the Serger away and this was just a dress up box skirt, no one would be the wiser.  I'll get to regret that choice later.

Thing 1 demonstrating spin.
with the help of thing 2

On the same thought process, I stitched the layers together with bright green thread.  The plan was to go back and do a decorative stitch after I got the skirt together.  That changed the moment she tried it on and declared it wonderful, asking when she could wear it.  "No Mama, I want to wear, wear it!" means it gets an instant upgrade to regular clothes status.  It also means that the bright green thread and that backwards panel were probably not the wisest of choices!  The thread is easily fixed with some ric rac, which will give the skirt even more visual appeal.  A sprinkling of fun buttons should also detract from the backwards panel, which because the fabric is white on white, isn't at all obvious.  I know it's there, but no on else will short of close examination.

$10 in ric rack and flower buttons

I was surprised that the strips were more eased than gathered prior to sewing to the next band in the layer.  I think if I were to remake this skirt, and I expect to based on Thing 1's delight at this one, I will redo the math and make the skirt fuller.  Ric Rac is a perfect complement to the raw serged edges, keeping the skirt from being too fussy, so I definitely plan on adding that in again.  The ric rac overlaid the bright green stitching where the layers were joined, stitching in with a medium width zig zag stitch, and was the easiest part of the skirt.  I originally planned on orange but after discovering I had NO orange thread (seriously?), I substituted purple.  I also bought bright blue, but also didn't have thread to match that.  The buttons were applied randomly across the front of the skirt.

Flowers at random.

This is a delightfully playful skirt, even in white.  I can't wait to see what it will look like in a black bold graphic print that is hanging out in the bottom of one of the stash bins.  This was a double hit with Thing 1 and with Stash Busting.  For the trifecta, it meets this month's challenge of sewing for someone you love.  Go me!  Now I just need a matching shirt.