Tea Towels into Little Girl Skirts, Guest Post by Days of Chalk and Chocolate

I'm beyond thrilled to be able to guest blog at Chic on a Shoestring today!  It's such an honor and I want to give a huge thank you out to Kate for offering this opportunity! I write the blog, Days of Chalk and Chocolate, which is mostly about my adventures DIY, decorating, crafting, and mothering all while on a teeny budget.  Sometimes I throw a little elementary teaching in as a topic as well!  I hope you'll stop by and visit me sometime to see some of my other thrifty projects.  Here's a sneak peak of some reader favorites!

Fall Ruffle Wreath Love Note Pillows Stuffed Artichoke Tutorial Chair Tutorial

I just started sewing this year and I'm trying my hand at simple skirts for my daughters. Recently I made them matching skirts out of tea towels! 

I was browsing in Home Goods the other day and found two tea towels in the prettiest red, pink, and white floral fabric. I grabbed them because they were the only two there and didn't know what I would do with them but I knew it would be something!  I paid $6 for both.  My daughter Molly is always asking to dress like her sister, Ellie (she thinks it makes them twins despite the fact that Molly is 5 and Ellie is 21 months but whatever!) so I decided the towels would make perfect matching skirts!

The towels!  Aren't they so pretty?

I studied a bunch of tutorials I found online and got the gist of what I would need to do. This is how I did Molly's skirt.  Molly needed her skirt to be 12 inches to hit just above her knee and has a waist of 19.5 inches. I didn't bother measuring the width because I was just using the width of the towels.  Molly's skirt would have the striped band at the bottom but it was too wide so before I cut the fabric I folded the band up and stitched. This became my new bottom and I measured from there.  Ellie's skirt was the remaining fabric on the other side of the towels. The lengths just worked out perfectly for me!

I then cut the towels so I had 2-13.5 inch pieces ( 12 + 1.5 inches to account for the seams).

I sewed each side seam, right sides together, to make the tube of the skirt.  Then I pressed the whole thing so it was nice and smooth.  Press open your seams as well.  Keep it inside out.

The best part of using the towels is that you don't have to worry about finishing any of the edges.  They are already hemmed for you.  All you have to do is the waist band!  Sweet!  Fold over the cut edge about a 1/4 inch-1/2inch and press. Then fold it again, this time wide enough to fit the size elastic you are using. Press again.

I sewed the waist band as closely to the edge as I possibly could.

Do not sew completely around!  I left a 1 inch opening in the waistband through which I could shimmy the elastic.

Well, since Chic on a Shoestring is a thrifty site I won't be embarrassed to tell you I didn't even use real clothing elastic. I had two never used elastic headbands in my vanity drawer for ages so I used those!  Luckily they were large enough for my daughters' waists.   I cut the elastic about 2 inches less than their waist measurements.

I fastened a safety pin to the end and used that to guide the elastic through. Learn from my mistakes. You'll save money on Band-Aids if you buy good quality safety pins instead of cheaping out with dollar store pins which actually bend. Who ever heard of a safety pin bending when you close it?  Well, I suffered so my girls would be adorable because that's the kind of mother I am.

I used a zig-zag stitch to secure the ends of the elastic and I ran it twice so that it wouldn't come apart. 

Then I hand stitched the waist band closed. DONE!  Well, not really. Molly woke up the next day and saw Ellie's skirt had a ruffle so of course hers had to have one too.  Here are the finished products!

And yes, I always hang my daughters' clothes on a ladder in our backyard with a mason jar filled with flowers next to it. Don't you?? I had a dandy of time getting them to stand still for pictures but I tried!

Thank you so much for letting me share my project with you!  And thanks again to Kate for having me today!  I hope to see you at Days of Chalk and Chocolate! Cheers!