As I mentioned yesterday, we stopped at a consignment store a few blocks from our house and picked up four tops for $10. It's a rather upscale dive for a consignment store, with lots of notable brands, a super classy selection, and everything in stellar shape. But what hooked us was the 4-for-$10 rack outside. Sold!
Her face says it all!
The first specimen Maria wanted to use as her "sewing guinea pig" was a size 3X slinky top with stretchy lace sleeves. I think it may be a night shirt? I wasn't sure, but the ideas and brainstorming began without a hitch. The shirt part "feels like swimsuit material," she said. So we discussed making it a swimsuit, or maybe a dress with a lace sash, but all of these were a little daunting for a beginner's project.
She LOVES dresses, but she also loves keeping up with her rough-and-tumble brothers. From that, the idea was born: leggings. How better to allow her to climb, jump, wrestle, and play with three very active boys and still maintain modesty with a particularly girly streak?
So we got to work:
Snippity snippity!
The arms were chopped off!
Pinning the armpits together to make the crotch of the leggings.
The "panty" area of the leggings, pinned and ready for stitching!
Did I mention that this is HER sewing project? Well, she did a great job focusing on pinning (we used safety pins since the lace was so "slippy slidey"), but when it came time to actually sew, she climbed into my lap, put her head on my shoulder, and asked me to start while she rested. In her defense, it was bedtime at that point.
So the crotch was stitched and we then pinned the inseams to where they'd fit snugly, like leggings should, rather than billow about her scrawny legs the way these things were. I didn't get a picture of that part, but I did get a post-sewn picture:
You can't really see the stitching, but we took it in about 4 inches on each leg.
Then we chopped the excess.
We left the waist as-is. She said she liked how comfortable it was without an elastic waistband. It was snug enough, but still stretchy enough, that I was fine to leave it that way. After all, it is her project, and elastic waistbands might be a bit much for someone who is still learning.
What do you think?
She sure likes them!
The "dress" she is wearing is one of the other shirts we picked up yesterday. It's a v-neck cotton shirt that she's wearing backwards. It is part of her brainstorming process for the fate of that shirt. It will likely be a post in the near future.
She's wearing the leggings this morning with an adorable vintage dress of yellow linen that my mother gave to her (another thrift store find, which is awesome!), and the whole outfit is a girly explosion of cuteness. I'll try and get a picture of it later. I'm without a properly functioning camera for the time being and must await my husband's return from work so that I might hijack his camera phone (as was necessary for this post).
