Skirting the Issue: Melissa from Melly Sews

Today we have the lovely Melissa from Melly Sews, a true artist in her own right.  She can literally sew anything!  Thanks Melissa for joining us today!

Hi all! I'm Melissa from Melly Sews, and I'm so excited to be here today. I'm a former theatre teacher, mom to two boys, and wife to a football coach. I do a lot of boy sewing usually (like the Sew in Tune series I have running now) so I'm thrilled to have the occasional chance to make something girly!

Like liZ shared on Saturday,  I was also exposed to the foster care system through teaching. Just this past school year I got to work with two great girls that I knew were foster children, and probably a lot more that I didn't realize were in foster care. So as I designed this skirt, I was thinking about those girls, both of whom loved this skirt when I wore it to school

I did a lighter weight version using 3 thrifted t-shirts that just screamed at me to put them together. 

I eliminated the fishtail back, made it a little shorter for a shorter person, and did a gathered bottom ruffle instead of the circle ruffle on the original skirt, but other than that this is the same skirt. The tutorial for it is here.

 The Watermelon part of the skirt name is probably obvious, but the Social part - that's from another small school I worked at, that had a Watermelon Social for back to school every year. I like to imagine a girl in foster care attending one of these back to school events looking special and loved in a skirt like this.

Thanks liZ and Elizabeth for having me, and even more for putting this great event together!