Back to school sewing!

I loved back to school time when I was a kid. I took Soren shopping over the weekend to pick up school supplies and it brought back all kinds of good memories. School supply shopping was one of the few times each year where my parents let my brother and I get whatever we wanted. It's not the same anymore with a class supply list. Soren doesn't get to label any of the things we purchased as her own. And she didn't get to pick out favorite pictures or characters for school folders. Though I understand the premise behind buying supplies for the class versus the child it does take a little of excitement and build up out of back to school. I think I can make up for it with sewing school outfits that are unique to her! The sewing bug hit hard this weekend and I have several things to share. I'll post today about her first day of KINDERGARTEN outfit and share the rest latter on this week :) I know what your thinking......the apple motif is totally over used. And I agree completely...sorta. I had planned on doing a letter S with flowers but this little lady said she wanted an apple. So an apple I gave her. I had been looking at the Alabama Stitch Book and was struck with hand stitching the applique on instead of using my machine. I love the way it turned out. I used embroidery floss and the hand stitches really added some depth and interest to what is a very simple image. Really it was faster than doing it on my machine just because I didn't have to change thread colors 3 times.
For the skirt I used this fabric from equilter.com
They have lots of fun prints appropriate for back to school. Just type "script" into equilters search box and look through all the prints. Be patient and look at all the pages or you will miss some good stuff!!! Another note about this fabric is the print runs parallel to the selvage. I missed this little detail when I ordered but fortunately I had enough to do what I wanted. The red and white polka dot is vintage from my moms fabric stash.

For the basic skirt I did 2 inch box pleats instead of gathering. I also put a really big 5 inch hem on this one. The combination of the box pleat and the wide hem is really lovely. The fabric lays nicely at the waist and balloons out to the hem. The wide hem gives the bottom of the skirt so much more body. I love the combo and will do it again. By the way I didn't iron this! This fabric washed up very well and came out of the dryer nicely.