There’s a Sew Frugal challenge going on at Instagram where the participants have to:

✂️Find a free garment pattern
✂️Sew fabric from your stash
✂️Make garment in March
✂️Reveal date is 31st March on Instagram

I was not going to participate this year but was going through the box of patterns that Sally @baylissblance sent me and the Oliver and S free tutu skirt happened to be in there, with a matching doll’s tutu, so that was the first item ticked off.

Now Miss G loves a tulle skirt so I immediately thought I’d make her one, but of course Little E wants to twin with her big sister, so I kept that in mind when looking for fabric.

I found a remnant of some pink gauze fabric that I used for this dress and I found some ombre tulle in a drawer, which I thought would go over it well.

I followed the instructions but my tutus seem much fuller, not that that is a problem.

I did a rolled hem on the tulle, but it does shred off, meaning my overskirts got shorter and shorter as I fixed the problem. When I was doing Miss E’s, the overlocker got away from me and I got an unfortunate cut. I found a scrap of tulle, and stitched it on using a flower embroidery stitch on my machine.

When I had finished I realised that the skirts were hard to tell apart, so I added the girls’ names – G in pink and E in blue, so they are easily identifiable.

The skirts were an instant success and both girls wore them immediately doing lots of twirling and dancing, which I failed to capture, but they were perfect as snack eating outfits.

I put them on the table to get a photo, but Miss E decided that a rearrangement was in order.

She kept trying to wake Pepper the puppy in spite of my exhortations not to!

I noticed Miss G happily singing and drawing and just managed to capture a small amount. The off key singing really amused me!

I decided to make the matching doll skirts, which I whipped up using the leftovers (meaning the sizing might be a bit off). These took about 30 minutes to make as I knew the drill. I tried it on Annie the waldorf doll. She’s wearing a dress which belongs to another, smaller doll, but I love that all the clothes get mixed and matched.

The two completed skirts. You will notice the flowers: these are there to cover up a little rip that was in the fabric, hopefully they will hold it together.

I used all the tulle and most of the pink gauze, so I am very happy with these skirts. I did find a bit of spangly material so might make more at some point.