Charm Pack Patchwork Skirt

Lately I've been following Lisa's blog, One-Hip-Mom, and I really like the skirt she made for her little girl, so I decided to give it a try. See the tutorial for her twirl skirt  here.  I did make mine a little different- see below! 

I bought a charm pack by moda on etsy.com .  See where I got it here. It is a pack of 42 pieces of assorted prints that are all 5 inches square. 

This is a side view of the pack. There are several cute fabric combinations to choose from. I got 3 different packs- I don't know what I am going to do with the other 2 packs yet!  Do you have any good ideas? :D

First I laid out the fabric in rows, making sure similar fabrics were not side by side. I did 4 rows and each row had 2 more squares in it than the row above to make the skirt flare slightly.  I put all 7 solid colored fabrics on the top row for the waist band since that won't show much anyways.  

Then I sewed all the squares in each row together with 1/4 inch seams and ironed them all in one direction.  

Here's what it looks like with the blocks sewn together. I decided to save out 2 pieces of the fabric so I can make a coordinating appliqué on a T-shirt or a coordinating hair bow sometime.  

Then I sewed the ends of the strips together so they each formed a loop.

At the top of each of these circular rows (except for the top row) I did gathering stitches. Gathering stitches are two rows of large stitches side by side that you  pull tight simultaneously to make the bigger circle of fabric gather to fit the smaller circle of fabric above it. 

Here I am sewing away :P

Starting with the bottom row I gathered and pinned it to the bottom (ungathered) edge of the next row up.  I kept working up the rows until the last one was connected to the waist band row. I also ironed the gathered seam in one direction and then top stitched over them for extra strength.   

For the waist band I ironed over 1/4 inch and stitched it down.  Then I ironed down 1.5 inches of the fabric to encase the elastic band and stitched it down leaving a 2 inch opening for inserting the elastic.  

Then I put some elastic on a safety pin and pulled it through the encasement and tied the elastic to the correct length. I left a small opening in the waist band encasement so I can easily go back when she grows bigger and loosen the elastic.  The optimal size for the elastic would have been 1 inch, but I did not have any so I used smaller. 

Here she is trying it on.  Still too much snow outside for a good photo shoot .  I haven't made the appliquéd shirt yet.

This project was fun and came together really quickly.  If you have a sewing machine and know a little girl, give it a try!