The sweater idea was taken from Sandy Henderson’s new book Sewing Bits & Pieces. I used an old sweater and cut off the sleeves at the elbow. The sleeve ruffles were made from two 4 1/2 inch x 20 inch strips of fabric. They were hemmed with a serger rolled hem. Two rows of basting length gathering threads were used to gather the ruffles, and then they were attached to the sweater sleeves with a serger. The yoyo flowers were made with fabric from the skirt, organza ribbon, taffeta ribbon, and pearl centers. The other two flowers were buttons. The leaves were cut from wool felt and hand stitched down with embroidery floss. A red glass lady bug adorns a leaf on the large flower while a green glass dragon fly flutters above the flowers.

The bodice of the skirt was the only part that needed a pattern for this strip skirt. My mother redrafted it into a girls size 16 from the Children’s Corner pattern Sassy Skirts. The front of the skirt bodice is flat while the back is gathered with an elastic casing. The strips were cut from six different colored fat quarters. There were twelve 6 inch wide strips cut while ending up five inches wide after sewing them together. All the seams of the skirt were sewn with a serger. The bottom band strip was folded in half length wise to give the band a smooth finished edge. One of the long edges of the bottom band was sewn to the bottom edge of the skirt with right sides together. The band was then folded in half length wise and the raw edge was folded under. This edge was hand stitched down to the band seam on the inside of the skirt. Six yards of chartreuse organza ribbon was machine basted down the long center with two lines of basting stitches 1/4 inch apart. The bobbin thread was used to pull up the gathers. A straight machine stitch was used in between the two basting lines of stitching to attach the ruffled trim to the top of the skirt band. The basting stitches were pulled out carefully. Since a ribbon was used for the trim, the edges of the ruffle did not need to be finished off.

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