Don’t forget – today is the last day to enter to win a free pattern from Among Brenda’s Quilts. Visit this post and scroll to the bottom to enter. The giveaway ends at 10pm tonight!

Near the end of last year I was happy to find out that I had quite a few friends that were sewing on a regular basis, so we started a little Sewing Club (for lack of a better name!) that meets about once a month. We had a meeting a few weeks ago and one of my friends suggested that I try to sign up to test some patterns for Heidi&Finn. I checked them out and they have some really cute kids patterns. The latest is the Tennis Skort (coming soon) and I’m glad I could test this one.

Heidi&Finn – Tennis Skort Pattern

I am super pleased with the results – and so are my kids! Thank goodness I have enough knit left over to make a 5T version for my oldest as well. This pattern goes together quickly, despite my not having a serger (yet?!). The steps are well explained and it has lots of photographs. The style is so versatile – each layer of the skirt can use a different fabric – making it really fun to play around with! I love that it is a skort as well. The shorts underneath are perfect for a trip to the park! I think too many little girls are running around in skirts these days that don’t know how to sit properly in them. At least this way you can let them feel like a princess and still be sure they are modest at the same time. What do you do when your little girls want to wear skirts all the time?

Since I needed to make this in a week I got to buy some fabric (yay!) and headed out to my local Fabricland store. Amazingly, since they don’t usually stock it, they had some Michael Miller knits available! I ended up with this pink/yellow pattern by Patty Young, part of her Heaven and Helsinki line. The fabric is AMAZING to work with. It is a stretch cotton blend jersey knit fabric with a 4-way stretch. The fabric is super-soft too. I was worried that the 4-way stretch would make it harder to sew, but it was no different than the regular medium weight jerseys I’ve worked with before.  The yellow stripe on the top skirt was very thin and needed a bit more care – but I really like the contrast with the pink – so I’m glad I took the extra time to use it. What do you do to help stop the fabric from stretching when sewing knits? I know lots of readers who are scared to sew with knit that could really benefit from your tips and tricks!

We had so much fun on this photo shoot! The weather finally co-operated yesterday, since it has decided to seem more like very-early-spring here instead of almost-summer. Grandma let us borrow her tennis racket and we headed off to a nicely hidden group of courts near our house. Thankfully there were not too many people there! We took over the end court and my youngest asked me “Mommy, how do you use this thing?” as she attempted to use the racket more like a hockey stick – though (thankfully) not hitting the ground with it!

My experience with this pattern was so good I will be back to Heidi&Finn soon to get some more patterns. I’ve got my eye on their Summer Maxi Dress pattern, or maybe the Colorblock dress? I can’t decide… what do you think? Is there another pattern from them that I should try? Maybe I should use some of the fabric I won from Whimsical Fabrics?

Here’s your chance to let your opinion count, Thread Riding Hood Commenter’s cheques are in the mail every third Friday of the month! (Hee, Hee!) Either way, I reply back to EVERYONE (generally through email, but sometimes on the post). We’d all like to hear what YOU have to say!