Let's Go to "The Hop" {Poodle Skirt Tutorial}

For those of you who may be new to Miss Lovie, you should know that I teach Kindergarten and LOVE planning fun days for the kids. So last Friday was the 50th day of school and we celebrated by having a 50's Day. Kids and teachers were invite to dress up. Of course, I was pumped about it because it meant I got to sew a poodle skirt. YES! 

 Here I am, ready for the "Hop"! I know you like those shoes, too, right?!

 I used a suiting type fabric that was much more lightweight than the felt you usually see on poodle skirts and it laid very nicely. I used black zig zag sequin trim (which I also used on this table runner) for the bottom of the skirt. LOVE. 

 It was a very dance-able skirt (dance-able is a word, btw.)

 See?

 You twist like this...

 and this.

We went all out at school. With all the outfits, decorations, making and drinking root beer floats, learning the Hand Jive and The Twist, comparing the 50's lifestyles to today's, and of course lots of counting activities to 50, it was a super fun day. 

 We made paper chains (the kids made them themselves!) and they had to create their own pattern since we were learning about patterns at the time in math.

 We made Rock and Roll records. 

 And we even had a teacher on roller skates during the Sock Hop! 

I have some fabulous pictures of the kids boogying at the Sock Hop, but I'm not permitted to show them! Just imagine almost 250+ kids in the gym doing the Hand Jive. haha! 

 Here's my kindergarten team all dressed up. Love them. 

If you're a teacher and want to do a 50's day, we got a lot of ideas from here, here, and here. Some of those links include some great printables we used!!  Or you could follow me on pinterest and I have some ideas under my "School" Board. 

Want to know how to make your own awesome poodle skirt? Of course you do! You never know when you might get invited to your very own "hop"! You could use it as dress up for kids, Halloween costume, or 50's day like us!! Read on :)

Poodle Skirt Tutorial

Materials Needed

2 yds. of lightweight material of your choice 

(to keep within the Poodle Skirt tradition go with baby blues, powder pinks, black, etc.)

1/4 of a yd. (or less) of white fusible felt 

(I used fusible felt so I didn't have to get wonder under, but you could use regular felt if 

you had it on hand and use wonder under with it.)

1/4 yd. (or less) of contrasting cotton fabric.

Elastic for the waistband (3-4 inches wide), enough to go around your natural waist plus 2 inches.

Trim for the leash and bottom of the skirt (about 2 yds. for the leash trim and 4 1/2-5 yds for the trim at the hem)

(On my skirt, I used thin black sequin trim for the leash and a thicker zig zag sequin 

trim for the bottom hem of the skirt)

A tiny piece of coordinating ribbon for the bow on the poodle's collar

sewing essentials

Create the Skirt

There are a lot of poodle skirt tutorials out there that look more complicated than necessary. As soon as I realized I got to make a poodle skirt, the perfect tutorial popped into mind. I just knew Dana from Made's Circle Skirt Tutorial would be the perfect fit for this project.

Source

I was excited, too, because I've been dying to try that tutorial anyway! It definitely was a great fit. Making the skirt part was SO easy. Thanks Dana for such a great tutorial!! Definitely use the lightweight fabric like she suggests- it makes a huge difference in the look of your skirt.

Follow the tutorial just as she says, but before you sew on your elastic, make and sew on the poodle and trim.

Make the Poodle

I used this poodle pattern (scroll down to find it), but here's another one if you like it better. I actually copied the image onto a word document and enlarged it as big as a regular 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper would allow me to do and then printed it. This may vary depending on whether you make the skirt for an adult or child.

 

 Pin the pattern to the contrasting cotton fabric and then cut it out. If you used cotton fabric for this step like I did, it'd be smart to use some kind of Fray-Stop (the spray or the gel) on the edges.

Pin the pattern to the fleece. Don't worry about the legs or the tail for this part, just cut along the body and make the balls for the feet and the tail separately.  

Lay your fleece over the cotton body of the poodle, making sure it's lined up on all sides.  

If you did not use fusible fleece, follow the directions on the Wonder Under. If you did use fusible fleece, flip it over and iron on top of the cotton side to get the fleece to stick. Be sure to line the fleece up carefully-especially on the balls for the paws and tail! 

 Pin the poodle to the skirt and make sure it is in the place you want it by trying the skirt on or holding it up to you in a mirror. Use Wonder Under to adhere the poodle to the skirt. Then sew along the outside edge of the poodle (about 3/8 an inch). Careful around the curves of the circles!!

Sew on all the trim

Once the poodle is sewn on, pin down whatever trim you're using. If you use sequin trim, please be smarter than I was and pin it in a way that allows you to sew along with the direction of the sequins. I sewed against the sequins and it created some puckering in the fabric along the leash and it was difficult to sew at times. When pinning the leash, pin it in a curly pattern as seen above. 

 After it's all sewed on, tie the coordinating ribbon in a bow and tack it to the dog's "collar" with a few stitches (either hand-stitched or on the machine).

 Then sew on the trim to the hem. See what happened to me? I ran out of the zig zag sequin trim and, of course, I made this at 9:00 the night before our 50's day so last-minute runs to the fabric store weren't even possible. There was only about 8 inches or so that was lacking trim so I just sewed on some regular zig zag trim. I may go back and fix it later. But it worked for the day. No one noticed....I don't think

Sew on the Elastic

Sew on the elastic just as Dana describes in her tutorial for the circle skirt and you're done! 

 I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! I'd love to see your poodle skirt if you make one! 

Now I'm off to go dance some more....

Thanks for reading! 

Linking to the parties on my sidebar.

Halloween 2011: Droid Love, Ghosts and Other Characters, Laughter, and Decorations

I hope everyone has had a fabulous Halloween. 

As you can see, we did! Above you will find one of my reasons for not posting this past week: 

Miss Lovie as C3PO(all made by me, minus the glasses, leggings, and shoes), Mr. Lovie as R2D2(all made by me AND Mr. Lovie!!), and Nix as Darth Vador (altered by me because apparently medium sized dogs have legs that are 2 feet long). These costumes (and school and everything else) have robbed me of all possible free time. So worth it, though. 

Droid Love 2011.

And, of course, Nix was evil all night.

"There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you."

"You don't know the power of the dark side!"

"I find your lack of faith disturbing"

(Side note: Since I got a new camera, I have amazingly been able to take pictures of our sweet, I mean evil, doggie Nix because she doesn't know it's a camera. Usually she is so scared of cameras that she runs out of the room, tucking her tail. And that means little cameras, big cameras, camera phones, etc. You could point a remote at her and act like you're taking a picture and she'd be outta there. But for some reason now that I have a huge, ominous, black, real-looking camera, she's cool with it. Weird. )

As I'm sure you have figured out by now, 

I love Halloween.

 Every year, I gather my bestest friends for a Halloween party and it just gets better every year. We've been doing this for 3 or so years now and I have accumulated 2 or 3 large tubs' worth of decorations (which, of course, don't include the pumpkins I usually glitter and carve). I always enjoy adding to the ridiculous collection of decor every year, but this year was a different kind of year because I made our costumes.  

This took up the majority of my Halloween crafting time so not much time was able to be spent on new decorations, but it was so worth it. Don't you think? (Stay tuned for a brief how-to on both the C3PO and R2D2 costumes)

And of course, our costumes were great, but there were so many other amazing characters at our party. I love my friends and their creative abilities. :) I couldn't help but share a few pictures. 

An Amish "Father and Son"

A mime who refused to perform...

A sweet jack-o-lantern who was kind enough to host the party (oh yeah, and be a great best friend).

The Ringmaster, his Lead Performer and their Elephant...

Of course, The Great Barrier Reef! Their shirts and pants look tie dyed. :)

And many more not caught on film.

And these two were spookier than words. Somehow they were everywhere at once. 

The lady ghost cursed this conversation of the circus performer and Mrs. Peacock (who was undoubtedly planning the circus performer's murder...it was Mrs. Peacock in the foyer with the knife....)

She snuck up on a football game...

She sometimes posed for photos with her best friends, but only spookily.

Then her other ghostly half of a husband snuck into pictures as well. Oh and there's the Riddler!

But he's best known as the ghost from up above. The Ringmaster could not believe his eyes.

"I'll get you."

The lady ghost loved dancing with the mime.

And he got caught ghost planking. 

Needless to say, fun was had by all.

Know what the coolest part is? Hardly any of us live in the same place anymore and lots of us travelled to get to where we all know each other from, Lexington, Kentucky. We traveled from Georgetown, Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky, Paducah, Kentucky, Atlanta, Georgia, Dayton, Ohio, etc. Travelling 2-6 hours for Halloween is dedication. I'm thankful that this crazy holiday is able to bring us all together. 

Here's a couple shots of our decor.

BATS! (idea taken from Dana at Made). My bats are also seen in this post.

pumpkins seen earlier in this post

Glittered skulls and bones (idea taken from Martha Stewart)

Poe-inspired book wreath! (Wreath made by Dara of Teach. Craft. Love., raven purchased on sale at Michaels.)

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Batty Table Runner seen here, a mummy, some fun printables and pictures from previous Halloweens

Glittered candlesticks, skulls, and black lace votives decorating the bathroom (I simply cut a rectangle of black lace and sewed it together to slip it around the votive. Idea take from somewhere?)

Glittered pumpkin votives (Idea taken from Martha Stewart). 

The R2D2 and C3PO Costume tutorial is now up. Go see it here! Not that you need the tutorials for this year, but I just want to put them out there in case you need them sometime! ha.

Happy Happy Halloween.

Thanks for reading.