A Rainy Day Twirly Skirt

July 25, 2012

A Rainy Day Twirly Skirt

It's best to pull out the happy fabrics on the rainy days, don't you think?

Decided to make good use of the fabrics given to me by making a couple of skirts for my girlies. My Roo (pictured above) was twirling in her Sunday dress the other day and I thought it would make just the right pattern for a skirt The dress fit loosely and I knew a skirt the same size would gather at the waist, though you will see, I cut it down a smidge to create more gather.

I pinned the side seems of the dress together to keep them aligned and cut on the fold because the center front of the dress was on the straight of grain (and I could tell easily because of the pattern on the dress).

I cut the hem portion of the skirt and half of the waist portion of the skirt, then I took off the dress and folded the skirt in half in order to get a straight line on the side seam and to make sure the length on the side matched the length on the front. Isn't my kitchen floor gorgeous :o)?

Because I knew the skirt was plenty long enough, I trimmed off about 3/8" at the waist to give more gathering room.

After the front piece was cut, I just slid it down and cut a second piece for the back.

It seemed too labor intensive to pull out my serger, so I did french seams on the sides. For the waistband, I used some bias tape I had on hand (similar to this skirt, only I didn't overlap the ends because last time it made it difficult to pull the elastic through) and put in the leftover elastic from these pants.

I seem to have forgotten to take pictures of a thing or two:

1) Waistband - To make up for not having "no roll" elastic, I ran a couple of rows of stitching over the elastic after it was in the skirt. I've never done that before, but it looks good -- like store bought stuff. I can't be sure, but it seemed to stretch the elastic a bit making the skirt looser than I had originally intended.

2) Hem - To save myself from burning my fingers on the iron while prepping for a narrow hem, I trimmed the skirt in lace, then turned and top stitched it with a zigzag to keep away any fraying.

I offered Roo another row of lace and she declined because it was already just the way she wanted it! (She also put on a size 18-24 month shirt for her photo shoot. She's almost 5.)