Swingset Skirt Review

I had the lovely opportunity to be a part of the Sew-a-long over at Oliver & s for the Swingset Skirt and what a lot of fun it was! As a panelist I was asked to sew up the skirt and not only give it a go, but add whatever I wanted. My plan was to sew up the skirt as part of my girl's holiday outfits...but then my youngest, Clara, got asked to help lead the Pledge of Allegiance for the Veteran's Day Program at the high school. I looked through her closet and realized that she really didn't have any 'nice' red, white and blue clothes (except for the Moto Jacket by Jennuine Designs, which I blogged about here). What to do? Why, give the Swingset Skirt a test run before hitting the fancy fabric, of course!

This is my finished 'patriotic' Swingset Skirt. I pretty much made it as is, except I added a couple of inches to the underskirt, because I wanted the red and white stripes to peak through and I used twill tape for the draw string instead of making my own. The thing I learned by doing a run through was that I needed to disregard the instruction of putting right sides together to sew the over skirt to the underskirt...by doing this your seams will end up on the outside (the side that will be seen when sticking out) of the skirt, which is not what I wanted. But all in all, I love it, she loves it so it's a win/win!

Up next were there fancy skirts {insert disclaimer that these pictures are not my best...the only day I had to take pictures outside this week was the day it was raining cats and dogs. I put it off and was only able to get quick early morning before the mad rush to school shots}

They do love how they turned out though and I can't wait to finish the shirts to go with them!

As for the pattern: Swingset Skirt by Oliver & s which now goes up to size 14!!!

It is a very straight forward pattern and is quite simple...but the possibilities are endless. People have added pockets, played with the under/over skirt combination, used interesting fabrics and much more. It worked well with the light weight wool I used in the patriotic skirt as well as the fancy fabrics for these 2 skirts.

Materials: Besides the 2 fabrics, you also need elastic...that's it!

I deviated a little from the pattern/instructions in that I played with the length of the skirts a little and I used ribbon instead of making my own drawstring tie. I also added a little ribbon in between the two skirts to gather it up on one side...it turns out the my youngest daughter loves it and the other with the snow flake overlay does not, so it might be taken off that one. I also realized that shear fabrics would not work well with a casing...duh, the elastic would show through...so I had to deviate a little more by creating a pseudo waistband. I just cut the top 3 inches of the over skirt from my solid fabric, attached it to the over skirt and then proceeded as per the instructions...pretty simple fix, really.

The Good: Easy versatile pattern that you can buy in paper or pdf form from the Oliver & S website.

It does not require any super sewing skills...just a great beginners pattern. It is easy to make and doesn't take a ton of fabric. But with a little imagination you could make this skirt countless ways!