Christmas crafting, part 2: red, red, red

For the elder daughter. This was an intense project! Actually, it was two projects, one not so intense - the fairly straight forward three dye baths and wax resists that made up the t-shirt.... and the weeping, cursing inducing trouble that was the skirt.

She will look at this and regret that she has no red socks to match.

The fabric on the skirt's upper layer was hand dyed with thread resists - also three color dyed - the same three colors as the shirt, I'm almost sure. But, whatever, let's talk about construction!

I started off with McCall's M5841, which is darling. But I tinkered. First of all, I made layer one longer, and added a contrasting waistband, which maybe is too distracting. Maybe?

I made layer three a solid color, and widened it. Otherwise, I cut down the width of every layer by nearly a third. The bottom layer is supposed to be 17 width of fabric strips sewn together, then cut into 8 pieces and then sewn together into a giant loop - mine, by contrast is 12, cut into 7.

Still, an immense undertaking. I am grateful to the existence of the serger, because while cutting out thirty pieces is easy, the enormity of the task of finishing the resulting seams was keeping me up nights...

I took the extra steps of finishing seams first, and then sewing them together on the proper machine - at least when attaching the layers - this did add a step, but it also made fixing mistakes (and oh, there were many!) easier. The long rows of strips, however, were put together on the serger.

I am also glad that I hemmed the last section before attaching it, because I am often a great procrastinator on hems. And at the last minute, I threw in a lining, so all the layers and seams wouldn't make it too uncomfortable to wear.

And finally, here's a close up of the ladybug:

maybe a bit out of focus?