Charm Pack Skirt

Skills acquired: hemming, installing elastic waistbands, gathers, pressing, not cursing at my sewing machine (even when it stabs me).

One of the projects in Stitch by Stitch is a girl's patchwork skirt made from charm packs. Since I was making mine for a verge of toddler, I altered the pattern some using the tutorial on One-Hip Mom. I ended up with a 5,8,12 pattern for a one-year-old.

I really learned a lot doing this project. If you're new to sewing like I am, I highly recommend making a mom's day by making one of these. You gain several skills, but mostly you gain confidence.

Here's some of what I learned and plan to do differently on future skirts.

- When pre-washing and drying a charm pack, have a method of keeping the squares together. I was fishing them out of sleeves and undies.

- Pay attention to the patterns you're making. I almost had a column of the same print.

- Pin far enough away from where you want to stitch so you don't have to take pins out as you go.

- Pay attention to how you pin. I put some in in a way that made it awkward to stitch without stabbing myself.

-Pressing makes everything beautiful. I double pressed my hem and waistband before stitching, and it turned out beautiful. My mom, who used to sew herself, was very impressed. It's so pretty, I'm posting a detail shot.

- Hem the bottom before you pull the gathers. Hemming on a curve isn't fun.

- I thought the skirt was too small, so I added another column before doing the back seam. It was more difficult to add than it was to make the skirt initially, but the experience was cool. I saw how much I had to undo to do it right.

- I used my seam gauge and seam guide on this project. Both tools were super helpful, and I can't imagine doing this without them.