Fall Poinsettia Update!

Well I thought about what to do with the Fall Poinsettias that I created from last year's flowers that had decorated the graves of my forbears, and decided that I wanted to grace them again with their beauty.

So here are the three arrangements I made:

Added to the orange Poinsettias are red Spider Daisies, Fall-colored leaves, and Eucalyptus with a burlap wrap.

Pretty...  :-]

You May See A Pillow Cover...

Front:

 

Back: 

...I see a skirt that's halfway finished already!

Front:

Back: 

.

On a trip to IKEA in Atlanta with my daughter we ended up in the damaged/discontinued/sale area. A huge bin of... what I will call "pre-sewn" fabrics... yielded this pillow cover that I thought would make a pretty cute skirt for her. it already had a zipper on the side, and was just the right measurements, both sideways and lengthwise. It *might* have cost $3.

Since this was a project for normal wear and not the stage, a little more care would be required to deconstruct and reconstruct this piece. For costuming, I would simply seam-rip the top and bottom, dart the top to waist-size (or use elastic), and hem the bottom.

Normal wear requires much the same process, but I will be finishing the top with facing, shortening the side zipper to a more manageable length, and completing the hem and side seams with side slits.

Now to the step-by-step...

First, the top of the zipper needs to open, so I seam-ripped from the zipper top to the top seam.

Notice there are no metal "stoppers" on this zipper that keep the slide from coming off, so it helps to safety-pin the two sides together to keep the slide from coming off...  ask me how I know this...  no, on second thought, DON'T ask me how I know this...

Next I seam-ripped the top and bottom seams. 

Since this was sewn with an industrial sewing machine, it had those serger-finished seams and the resulting thread mess was impressive.  Here is where a lint-roller came in handy.

I then made darts in the fabric where the top of the skirt would be so that the resulting measurement around the top was the same as the measurement of just below her waist. (I used to have a 24" waist too...  when I was 10...)

Because pillow cover zippers extend the entire length of the pillow and skirts don't, I wanted to shorten the length of the zipper for ease of use. I love my seam-ripper...

Rip first, re-sew the seam next, then secure the bottom of the zipper by sewing over the zipper, and trim.

I thought some shallow side seam slits would be cute and functional.

With the darts done, I wanted to make a facing to finish the top. Basically, tracing over the top of the skirt with paper works well.

I chose black because...  well.....  okay, I lied, black was what I had on hand, and it wasn't going to be seen anyway, so there.  :-p  I put what would be the open side of the facing on the selvage edge of the facing fabric because I didn't want it to ravel and I didn't want to hem it.

After sewing the facing to the top edge and flipping it, I secured the open edges to the top of the zipper so the slide would not come off again... uh, would not come off at all.  That's what I meant to say...  yeah.

 I always like to topstich my facing down in place.

And again, here it is!  Can’t wait to get it on her for a fitting.

I also bought a pillowcase…  ;-]