party dress free pattern and tutorial

I found this awesome party dress tutorial on  ucreate. Cannot wait to make one. All I  have to do is buy the fabric..

EDIT the location of this tutorial has changed. the correct link is now on the cottagemama blog

another free little girl dress pattern

this is a long sleeved dress that is so, SO CUTE  and so very easy. If my machine did not eat up knits, i'd have made one of these  for each of my girls. get the pattern and instructions over at The Train to Crazy.

how to make a circle skirt

I saw the tutorial at this mama makes stuff for a circle skirt and thought, my mom makes it so easily without a pattern!

so here are instructions to make the simple circle skirt for you or anyone else, its that simple.

measure your waist. write this down as W=_

measure how long you want the skirt to be. write this down, L=_

fold your fabric from selvedge to selvedge. fold it down to make a squareish shape.

now draw two circle shapes on the fabric like this:

oh wait, dont just draw them, you have to think a bit first.

the small circle is a bit larger than your W. (little math lesson here, circle perimeter is Rx2x3.14 so R should be around W/6. so divide the W by 6, and round up. say, if my waist were 24inches(oh, the possibilities), we do 24/6=4. but we need to add a bit to this because i would want to pull the skirt over my hip...and i dont want a zip.

so i add 0.5 to that, so R=4.5 inches.

if W=20 (like my baby amy, right now eating pickled onions .........oh no! be right back!)

err where were we? ah yes, w=20. so 20/6 will be... wait, let me get the calculator on this..ok,we get 3.33, so we round it up to R=3.5.easy peasy. hmm i hope you think so. you still with me on this?

0k. mark your fabric with a chalk or disappearing pen. if you dont know how to mark a circle shape, the easiest way is to tie a lenght of string(or yarn, or thread, or ribbon) around your marker and FROM THE MARKER, measure the distance and make a mark on the thread. hold this point to the folded corner of fabric and mark the circle with the marker end.

first, mark the waistline. for another way to do this, check the picture and tutorial at this link.

next, use W+R as the marking length and mark the hemline.

now cut through all layers to make a donut-shaped circle skirt.

attach elastic to the waistline.

finishing the hem:
with doublefold bias tape

with ribbon like in the famous lazy days skirt from oliver+s
with lace, using the same technique

free skirt patterns for little girls

1. very easy oliver+s lazy days skirt takes only very little amount of fabric..
2. aline skirt with ruffle.
3. half circle skirt. so girl-y.
4. my favourite easy twirl skirt. very simple, very cute!
5. adorable drop waist twirl skirt has two layers too..
6. twirly whirly apron skirty ..
7. ruffled tiers xox skirt the picture is misleading, they give you the pattern to adapt ..
just use little girls measurements:).this site has other free skirt patterns too.
8. reversible wraparound skirt this is a basic circle skirt,
9. a skirt made from men's ties if you like that sort of thing.
10. organza-tulle ballerina petalskirt
11. really full pettiskirts from martha stewart
12. tanya whelan's flirty skirts absolute eye candy ! those fabrics!!

and  another,
13. justtutes patchwork circle skirt
looks like a lot of work, but isn't. look around that site, lots of tutes.

And that's a baker's dozen of amazingly easy skirts for my girls (and yours) this summer.