October 13, 2018
Be Smart
I’ve always wanted a school girl kinda skirt! and now I have one!
This is the Be Smart Jumper from Ellie and Mac (in womens, also comes in girls)
Leave it to the Fab Clique to have the EXACT plaid of the rally skirts the color guard at my brother’s high school had. Their skirts were scratchy wool. This is super soft brushed polyester with great recovery for the waist and pretty drape for the skirt. It’s so perfect!
One thing I did a little differently than the pattern instructions is to use snaps to put the straps on rather than tack with a sewing machine. I used black size 20 Kam snaps and you can’t even tell! That way I can take the straps off and just have a circle skirt if that works better for my outfit. I can also adjust the strap length by adding multiple snaps. Snaps are a snap to put on and way quicker than sewing, I think!
Another helpful tip! You’re going to need to flip the straps right side out. The instructions suggest using a safety pin like you would to run a drawstring. I recommend a bodkin. It’s a new gadget I just got and it will change your life! You pinch one end of fabric, slide the lock down and it will hold tight. Then thread it through. You’ll have much more leverage with the long metal tweezer-like grip and it won’t get tangled like a safety pin does.
I love circle skirts because cutting on the double fold means there’s almost no assembly. (Though I didn’t totally love hemming circle skirts until I got my coverstitch) Then with my two little cheat/hacks, this pattern is super quick! Everyone at work has said it’s adorable. Maybe work isn’t the best place to wear this and I’m better off saving it for cosplay, but it’s too much fun not to wear regularly.
More Photos:
I’ve been making a lot of Ellie and Mac patterns lately. The 2XL fits me well, I only adjust a tiny bit for height. The overlapping pages give me confidence that I assembled them correctly and leaves me room to do that tiny height adjustment! They’re almost always having a sale. Patterns release at a discount, on top of the sale price! So they’re usually $3.85 on the day I blog them. On Wednesdays, the patterns rotate through being on sale for $1 (Wacky Wednesday).
Here are some of my other blog posts about Ellie and Mac Patterns.
https://www.kittymakesit.com/search/label/EAM
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| Be Smart Jumper |
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| Day to Night top/dress |
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| Be Captivating |
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| Favorite Sweater |
Disclosure:
This post may contain affiliate links. They don’t change the prices you see, but I might get a small percentage to help fund materials for my next post.
If this post was helpful to you, and you’re planning to purchase the pattern or fabric anyway, I’d really appreciate it if you’d use my affiliate link: The Fab Clique Fabric Shoppe, Be Smart Jumper
