Serving Through Sewing

"No time is better spent than that spent in the service of your fellow man."  That quote rings true to me and today, I'd love to get you thinking of ways you can use your sewing talent to bless others.  Below is a list of six organizations that need sewers who are willing to give of their time and create specific projects.  If you're up for a little challenge, choose at least one of these groups and make something for someone you don't know.  When you're done, I promise you'll feel good inside. Service just does that to you! 

Skirting The Issue- Sponsored by Simple Simon. From July through August, sew any size of a skirt for girls in your local foster care system.  These skirts are a blessing to girls throughout this system so they can have something new for back to school. Below are a few tutorials that can help you create a cute skirt:

Free skirt tutorials:

Easy Back to School Skirt, a Refashion & Tutorial

Flock of Birds Skirt

This year Simple Simon has also added quilts to their list of handmade items to donate to the foster care system in your area.

Sew Powerful- Sponsored by Liberty Jane, asks others to sew cross body purses for girls and women living in Zambia. Below is a link to teach you how to use your scraps to make this project.

Using Scraps to Make a Cross Body Purse for a Good Cause

Primary Children's Hospital- Sew monsters, safe sleep sacks, or medical play dolls as shown in the photo below.  You can even make no sew soft blankets.

Feel free to go to this post and download a free pattern and tutorial on how to use fleece scraps to make a few monsters:

1 Million Pillow Cases- "American Patchwork & Quilting is challenging quilters, sewers and crafters to help us reach our goal of donating one million pillowcases to local charities.  Many charities can benefit from the donation of a pillowcase and the challenge gives you the opportunity to donate and make a difference in your community."

The Linus Project- "Provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer "blanketeers."

Humanitarian Quilts- Make a quilt that will be given to those in need.

If you know of any other organizations that you think should be added to this list, please leave me a comment or send me an e-mail and I'd be happy to add them.  xoxo Grandma

A Flock of Birds Skirt

After I designed the bird applique pattern in yesterday's post, I starting thinking how cute it would be to have a whole flock of birds sewn along the bottom of a skirt, creating a border. To accomplish this task, I spent a lot of time cutting, measuring and machine embroidering but the finished outcome is so worthy of sharing.

At first I cut out all the birds and wings from two different fabrics but after laying everything down onto the skirt, it looked boring. So, I cut out more birds bodies and wings from different fabrics, mixing the fabrics up as I positioned the birds in place. 

If you want to create this skirt, get the bird pattern here and have fun cutting. Reserve about 3 1/2 hours to add this design to a skirt.  The bird's eyes was cut from the black and white polka dot fabric and then machine embroidered in place. My bird's beaks are about 1 inch apart and their tail feathers are around 2 3/4 inches apart. These dimensions will vary for you depending on how wide your skirt is.  A tutorial on sewing these birds onto a skirt is found here.

I love the look of this flock of birds skirt!  Don't you think a little girl would have fun wearing a skirt like this?  xoxo Grandma

Linked at: Simple Simon and Company, Threading My Way, Nap Time Creations, USS Crafty

Skirts for Skirting the Issue & a Free Bird Pattern

It's that time of year when seamstresses across this nation turn to making skirts.  Simple Simon and Company sponsors a project called Skirting the Issue. All the skirts donated to this project are given to girls in foster care.

My niece and her 9 year old daughter came to visit me for a few days.  I explained to this cute 9 year old a little about this project. She was impressed and wanted to be my model for it. 

This magenta colored skirt (pictured above) was pretty simple, so I decided to step it up a notch and add a little fun. 

See that cute little bird? I had a little too much fun creating the pattern for it. The pattern is a good one for using your scraps. It'll add a whole bunch of pizzazz to a simple skirt. 

If you'd like to use this simple design too, download it here.  Then cut out the three pattern pieces.  Layer them together onto one side of a skirt using either a glue stick or fabric spray adhesive to keep the pieces in place.  I added some tear away stabilizer behind the design.  Next, machine embroider the pieces onto the skirt using a zig zag stitch.

To mark the legs onto your skirt, use bright yellow thread and hand stitch two three inch long lines.  Then hand stitch the lower bird feet lines. Once those are in place, machine stitch right over these basting stitches.

  

The finished bird should look something like this when completed:

I had a lot of fun machine appliqueing this design onto several of these skirts.  I love that Simple Simon and Company sponsors this project every year.  If you have time, why not sew a skirt to donate to your local foster care program?  It'll really leave you with a good feeling if you choose to participate in any charity project. You have until August 15th to get your skirts sewn and donated to this cause.  xoxo Grandma

You might like these posts:

Flock of Birds Skirt

Skirting the Issue Sewing Night

Easy Back to School Skirt - A Refashion & a Tutorial

A ruffle on the bottom and side pockets make this a great back to school skirt.  Starting this project with shirts you no longer wear, make this an economical project. Not only is this skirt economical to make but it's also super easy to sew together because half of your seams are already sewn!  One more version of this skirt can be seen HERE.

Here's a list of what you'll need to make this skirt:

• Knit women's tee shirt (main skirt fabric) 
• One additional tee shirt or an old camisole 
• Scissors
• Ruler
• 1" wide elastic
• Coordinating thread

1.  Fold  your shirt in half making sure the hem lines up.  Measure off the length of the desired skirt.

2.  Cut off shirt right below the bottom of the arm hole.

3.  From a camisole or another knit shirt, cut (3-4) 1 1/2" stripes.

4.  This is what all fabric pieces will look like. once cut.

5.  Cut apart at the seam each of the 1 1/2" fabric stripes.

6.  At a diagonal, sew the stripes together to form one large continual circle.

7.  Determine the center of the ruffle fabric - 3/4"

8.  Down the center of the ruffle circle, sew a basting stitch all around the fabric.

9.   Unpick about 5-6 inches from the top of each side seam.  Pin a pocket to each side.

10. Sew the straight edge of the pocket to the skirt.

11. Gather the ruffle and pin it along the bottom. I lined the bottom of the ruffle to the bottom stitch on the hem.

12.  Sew the ruffle to the skirt. 

13.  This image shows one pocket sewn to the skirt and the opposite pocket pinned.

14.  Right sides together, pin the pocket and then sew around the edge at 1/4".

15.  Pin the side seams at the top and bottom of the pocket.

16.  Stitch the top seam and the bottom seam.

17.  I like to stitch the bottom of the pocket together twice to make the pocket stronger.

18.  Finish the top edge of the skirt with a serger or an overlapping stitch.  Fold down 1.25" from the top of the skirt to form a casing.  Stitch close to the edge of the casing.  Make sure to leave a 1/2 - 1" opening!

19.  Thread 1" elastic through the casing.  I use a safety pin to help push the tread through the opening.

20.  Overlap the elastic and sew it together. 

That's it! Your easy back-to-school skirt should be done.  It's super cute, right? You and your child (or grandchild) will be so proud that you made this stylish skirt for them!

Shared:  Threading My Way, Creating My way to Success, Snickerdoodle Sunday

"Skirting the Issue" Sewing Night!

Last Thursday night, I went to the "Skirting the Issue" event sponsored by Simple Simon/Project Run and Play. During this event, the blogosphere-sewing world was invited to participate by making skirts which would be donated to girls in local foster care programs so they'll have a new skirt to where when they go back to school in the fall.  By the time I left this activity, I had five skirts completed to donate to this cause.  On Saturday, I finished three more skirts.  The grey skirt pictured above was one of those skirts.  It was made from a hoodie and white knit fabric recycled from a camisole.  It is one of my favorite skirts out of the ten I created for this cause.  It's casual, could be worn with any shirt and it was easy to sew together with items donated to me by a friend - thanks Lindy!  Monday night I finished the skirt pictured below which was refashioned from a men's shirt and a little leftover grey knit binding.

This black skirt  with white ruffles was finished on Tuesday night. It is sized for a 4 - 6 year old and was refashioned from a women's tee and accented with ruffles cut from a camisole.  I added white side pockets to - I just love pockets in my skirts!  HERE is a tutorial on how to make this super easy skirt.

 A big thank you to these two women, Liz and Elizabeth (the wonder women from Simple Simon and Company/Project Run and Play and Project Sewn ) for putting together such a great service project and allowing all of us to join in the fun. You can read more about this cause HERE.  Please join us, you'll be glad you did!

As far as I know, this 11 year old was the only male who attended this activity (except a photographer whose three photos I borrowed for part of this post).  In the photo above, I am helping Gaven use a serger.  He sewed really fast and when I tried to explain that he needed to slow down, well, he likened the serger to a race car and said it was so much more fun to go fast! Dang, he was a cute kid!  I'm so impressed with his mother for teaching him that service can be fun and allowing him to participate.

Here are the first five skirts I made:

One of the piles of skirts completed toward the end of the activity:

Skirts for teenagers:

Take it from me, serving is fun (and skirt making is too)!  xoxo Grandma

Linked to: Skirt Fixation, Projects Sewn, Nap Time Creations

Other skirting the issue posts:

A Flock of Birds Skirt