If your daughter is anything like mine, she loves dresses and skirts. She also likes running with the boys in our neighborhood. After one too many episodes of her accidentally flashing someone, I quickly sewed her a pair of bloomers so she could feel a little more lady-like when her dress blows around while she rides her bike.
Materials Needed:
-1 1/2 yards of fabric (more or less depending on the amount of ruffles you want)
-1/4 inch wide elastic
Bloomers are basically tiny shorts with elastic around the legs. If you have a pattern for shorts, just use that. If you don't, just use a shape similar to this...
cut four of these, two for the front, and two for the back. The crotch part of the back should be just a little longer than the front.
1. Sew along the curved part of the two back pieces, then repeat with the front pieces.
2. Cut out your strips, which will become ruffles. They should be about 2 inches wide and about 20 inches long. The longer you cut, the more ruffly they will bunch up.
3. Serge down the long sides of all of your strips. If you don't have a serger, you could zig-zag, leave them raw, or even use ribbon for this project.
4. Set your sewing machine's stitch length to the longest it will go and sew right down the middle of all of your strips. Make sure you leave a few inches of thread hanging off each end.
5. Holding one thread, slide the fabric down, thus bunching it up.
6. Ruffle your fabric strips until they are approximatley the length of the back of your bloomers. Mine needed to be about 13 inches.
7. Pin the ruffles to one side of the bloomers. Sew down that side.
8. Pin on the other side.
9. Sew directly down the middle of the ruffles all the way across.
10. Sew down the other side of your bloomers.
11. Place the front piece on top of the back piece, and sew down both sides.
12. Sew the crotch.
13. Iron over elastic casings for the waist and both legs and sew, making sure to leave an open space to insert the elastic.
14. Insert your elastic and sew the elastic openings shut.
You're finished! Put those adorable things on your little lady and tell the neighborhood the show is over!
peek-a-boo!
