Chevrons & butterflies: Three ways to make a pieced skirt

It has been a long time since I sewed something for my 3 girls.

Although I don't have them wear matching clothes in our normal day to day life, 

it is sort of fun to do occasionally. As long as they'll let me I better enjoy it...

Since I tend to get bored when I make the same thing over and over,

I used three different methods to make their skirts.

I will describe what I did & post a link to a tutorial or pattern for a similar skirt.

I will start with the easiest one:

The basic single layer skirt

This skirt just consists of two strips of fabric sewn together, and after that you just treat it as a if it were one piece of fabric. 

You can follow the directions in this pattern to make the skirt.

The hardest thing was to match up the chevrons at the seam, which was easy...

Next is the double layer skirt.

This one is a little more work, but still pretty basic.

Basically the skirt has 2 layers:

the chevron fabric is the basic skirt,

and there is an extra strip of fabric sewn on top of that.

To create a similar skirt, you can use this layered skirt tutorial.

This works great if the fabric you are using is sort of thin,

and you don't want to line it. 

And last but not least the tiered skirt.

This one was the most time intensive.

Not hard, but ruffling fabric and matching up the tiers is not my favorite thing to do.

However, I thought I could handle one :)

A tutorial for a similar skirt can be found HERE.

Shared at Sugar Bee Crafts, Today's Creative Blog,  girl. Inspired and The 36th Avenue.

Happy World Down Syndrome Day!

Happy Spring!

Spread the word

Spread the Word to End the Word

Fact Sheet

WHAT

Spread the Word to End the Word_™ is an ongoing effort by Special Olympics, Best Buddies and our supporters to raise the consciousness of society about the dehumanizing and hurtful effects of the R-word and encourage people to pledge to stop using the R-word. 

The campaign, created by youth, is intended to engage schools organizations and communities to rally and pledge their support at www.r-word.org and to promote the inclusion and acceptance of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

WHEN

The official annual day of awareness is held the first Wednesday of every March. While most activities are centered on or near that annual day in March, people everywhere can help spread the word throughout their communities and schools year-round thru pledge drives, youth rallies and online activation.

WHO

Spread the Word to End the Word was founded by college students Soeren Palumbo (Notre Dame 2011) and Tim Shriver (Yale 2011) in 2009, and continues to be led by passionate young people, Special Olympics athletes and Best Buddies participants across the United States and in many other parts of the world.

WHY

Respectful and inclusive language is essential to the movement for the dignity and humanity of people with intellectual disabilities.  However, much of society does not recognize the hurtful, dehumanizing and exclusive effects of the R-word. 

Language affects attitudes. Attitudes impact actions. Make your pledge to choose respectful people first language today at www.R-word.org.

HOW

Visit www.r-word.org to learn how you can Spread the Word to End the Word.

Laundry sorting trick: Sock keepers

Sometimes there are simple things that make a job quite a bit easier.

This is one of them:

One of the things I strongly dislike about folding and sorting laundry, 

is matching socks and figure out who they belong to.

I would spend quite a bit of time holding up socks to see if they were the same length, 

and once I had paired them all, trying to figure out which child was the owner.

A few months ago I read about something that could help to eliminate this chore:

Give each child their own laundry bag, let them put their worn socks in it.

Then just wash the whole thing, throw it in the dryer like that,

and hand it back to them to be sorted. 

I used cheap laundry bags, and sewed a strip of patterned fabric along the zipper so that my girls would know which one belongs to them.

The result?

After 3 months of doing this

(yep, I am a slow blogger)

I have to say:

it works GREAT!

For them it's easy to put their worn socks in the bag every night,

and after laundry they just match up their socks and put it in their own drawer.

Should have done this YEARS ago!

Now, go make your own sock keepers :)

Shared at: Sugar Bee Crafts.

Easy, healthy & delicious berry smoothie

I came up with this recipe on one of these days where I felt I needed something fast, easy and healthy.

It makes one serving, as pictured, and I really like it..

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup cranberry juice (100% juice)

* 1/2 cup Greek vanilla yogurt

* 1/2 cup strawberries (I used fresh)

* 1/3 cup raspberries (I used frozen)

Put it all in the blender & blend till smooth.

Enjoy!

Shared at Tatertots and Jello and Sugar Bee Crafts.

Loved