It’s back to school time!  Ahh!! Kiss my daytime sewing goodbye, along with trips to the pool and picnics in the park. Fun in the sun is O-V-E-R, over. (Insert multiple tear faced emojis.)  Even though my heart is sad to say goodbye to summer, I know my big girl is so excited to get back to school to see her friends and meet her new teacher.  To help get us motivated for school, we selected some fun fabrics together to make a fun and “techie” back to school outfit, Maid for Mermaid style.  If you are ready to start getting your school clothes put together, Made for Mermaids is having a sale to go along with this back to school tour.  Use code is M4MB2S to get 20% of your patterns.  Woot! You can also check out some tools to help you plan your back to school sewing on the Made for Mermaids Blog. (This post contains affliliate links, because this fabric hoarder needs some spending cash.  Every little bit helps.)

I was so excited to get an invite to join in on this Back to School Tour with Made for Mermaids.  The sewists on the tour are people I follow to be inspired by, so it is certainly an honor to be sharing along with them.  This tour is going to be loaded with inspiration for both girl and boy back to school creations!

So, let’s get started with what we came up with for our back to school look.  I selected the Evie Pleated Suspender Shorts and the Charlotte Collar Top.  Once these were picked out, we headed to our locally owned fabric shop Let’s Sew to let Peyton pick out some fabric.  We ended up with two fabrics from Robert Kaufman Plug & Play for the quilters cotton used and I had an Art Gallery knit solid in my stash that went great with the color in the shorts, so we stuck with that.  Why buy more fabric when you have Art Gallery that matches? (I can’t believe I just admitted to not buying more fabric when I had a legit excuse.)

The Charlotte top came together great.  Typically I’m not a fan of gathered sleeves.  I’m a bit OCD on getting gathers to look  exactly the same on both arms and that can sometimes be difficult.  I didn’t have trouble with these and I love how the puffed sleeve gives the top a feminine look.  Another feature I liked about this top is the banded sleeve. Personally, I say BAND ALL THE THINGS. I hate hemming knits.  Mostly, I think this is because every time I do I am reminded of how I don’t have a coverstitch machine and that makes me sad.  Do you have an extra coverstitch machine? Feel free to mail me one. 🙂  The collar turned out great for this top.  Charlotte actually has several collar options, or you could just leave it off for a simple tee.

For the Evie Shorts, I made a few modifications besides leaving the suspenders off.  The first change was lowering the rise.  I knew Peyton wouldn’t be wearing these at her natural waistline, so I followed the instructions in the pattern so they would sit a bit lower.  Second, I brought up the inseam slightly.  To be honest, now that they are done, I’m not sure I will do that the next time.  They are boarder-line on passing the dress code in length, but what kind of parent would I be if I didn’t push the dress code, right? (Just kidding… kind of.)

I just love that she picked out such a fun fabric. We didn’t go with something flowery or school themed and I still think they look great.  The keyboard collar and the HDMI, Ethernet, etc.  hook-ups in the shorts bring the “techie look” together.  Secretly, I want a pair to wear to Technology Night at my school.

So, this is the beginning of my back to school sewing.  What do you think so far? Have you enjoyed the first few days of the tour?  Be sure to check out all the stops on the tour and don’t forget to take advantage of the sale.  (Hop back up to the top for the coupon code.)

Tour Schedule

Gotta love those glasses…