Friday, December 23, 2011

white ruffle skirt



I had a bunch of this white fabric and so I wanted to test out this skirt pattern. It is the nie nie skirt from pink fig. The pattern still calls for 2 more layers of ruffles but I like the length of this one on her. The fabric is a little thicker than the normal cotton quilting fabric so this skirt is extra puffy and quite heavy with just the four layers. I have been doing all the ruffles on her clothes the old fashion way with a basting stitch and pulling the threads. It is soooo time consuming. I enjoy doing it, it is almost therapeutic pull gather, pull gather, pull gather. I feel like I go in a trace;) But because it is so time consuming and I'll be making skirts with ruffles for my Etsy shop I bought a ruffler foot for my sewing machine! I played around with it all day yesterday trying to figure out the learning curve for it. There are so many factors that you can change to make more or less gathers or pleats. It is really a cool little foot and I know it is going to save me a ton of time and actually be more precise on the gathering placements. I whipped up another nie nie skirt in black and it took at least half of the time or maybe even less from when I did it all hand gathering on the white skirt.

Last month I got a new machine! I have had my viking designer for about 9 years and my daughter broke the embroidery part on it a couple years ago. I thought about just getting it fixed but it is a floppy disk and I would also have to upgrade it to a USB and so I decided it was also just time for a new machine. I went with another viking, The Ruby and I love her!!! It is so nice to have my embroidery part back. Everything from my old viking I can use on my new one so all the feet and hoops I've collected over the years is not a waste. I am keeping my designer as a backup and if I get really busy I can use it while my other machine is embroidering. It has been so fun! The shirt she is wearing is an embroidered applique rudolph and then her name. So stinkin' cute!

I am hoping to have my Etsy shop up and open in the next week or 2. It is called She Sew Sassy. It will mostly be for girls clothing but also I will have a few random other things occasionally. I am nervous and excited and it has been a few years in the works and the timing is finally right now. I will post when it is open.