Ruffle Skirt Tutorial

First of all, hello to all of you who just joined us this weekend...I can't believe how many of you came over from Ucreate!  I'm so excited to have you and hope you stick around.  I'm working on a lot of projects right now and hopefully some of them will interest you.  

I visited most, if not all, of your blogs to say hi (if you had one).  I'm sorry if I missed you.  I'll try to catch you this week.  I'm amazed at all of your talent.  Geesh.  I need to step things up a notch.  

Second...If you haven't entered the giveaway yet, be sure you do. It's a good one and I'll be showing some ways I am going to use my felt if you happen to win it!

Ok, onto the tutorial.

I haven't been sewing too much lately.  My sewing space is in the corner of my daughters bedroom and she is finally too big/active to sleep on my bed for her naps.  We need a pack n' play or something.  Until then, I'm sewing while she is awake, which is difficult.  She's into everything.  Thank goodness for Sesame Street (I know! I'm horrible, don't judge me).

I saw this ruffled skirt at OldNavy.com and thought it was pretty cute and seemed simple enough to finish quickly.  

*image source here

I had some white jersey on hand and decided to give it a try.  It turned out really cute and was very simple to make.

She's was actually saying "mom" when I took this.  LOVE.

Materials:

1/2 yard Jersey and matching thread (more for larger skirts)

3/4" wide elastic for waistband

Construction:

Start with a piece of jersey knit that is 1 1/2 times your waist measure by your length measure + 2 inches. 

My waist measure was 17 inches and my height was 8" so my rectangle should be about 26" x 10".

*I actually doubled my waist measurement and think it ended up with too much material.  I think it would look better with less, but it's up to you.  It may depend on the size you are making.  For little skirts I would definitely go with less, for larger you may need more.  

Make a casing.  Fold the top of your skirt down 1 inch  and iron.

Sew with 3/4 inch seem.  I moved my needle to the left to be certain my elastic would fit.  Leave a 1 inch gap to allow for the elastic to be inserted later.  

No you should have this.  Mine is wrinkly because I inserted the elastic and then realized it would be hard to sew on the ruffles with a gathered skirt and had to unpick and take it out.  Grrr...

Do some math.  You want at least 4 rows of ruffles, more for larger skirts.  I wanted my skirt to have small ruffles, so I decided on 1 1/2" wide ruffles.  Then I calculated the length of my skirt starting below the casing to the bottom.  It is about 7 inches.  I figured I would need about 5 ruffles that were 1 1/2 inches wide to cover the area.  You want your last ruffle to hang off the edge a bit.

Cut out ruffles to your desired width by double the your skirt width (4x's your waist measure).  Mine turned out to be 68" x 1 1/2".  **Remember, my skirt is too wide.

Sew a gathering stitch 1/3 of the way down from the top of each ruffle piece (longest thread length, highest tension). 

Gather your ruffles a little more by pulling on the bobbin thread and spreading the ruffles out until they are even.  Line them up to make sure they measure the same length as your skirt piece.  

Then sew your ruffles together along their short ends.  Right sides together with a 1/4 inch seem.  Now you should have this.

Pin your ruffles to your skirt piece.  I started about 1/4" below the casing with my first one and just eye balled it to make sure it was even.  If I had used a color other than white, I would have used my ruler and fabric pen to draw lines where the top of each ruffle should go and then pined on the lines.  

  

Each ruffle below that should line up exactly under the ruffle above it.  Almost touching.  It's hard to tell in the picture because of the ruffles, but it is even and they are almost touching.  

Once all of your ruffles are pinned on, sew each ruffle to your skirt.  I sewed directly over my gathering stitch.  

No you have this.  It really doesn't pull in the middle like that, I just didn't lay it down very flat.

Insert your elastic through, sew ends together and then sew the casing shut.

I think it will look even better after it is washed.  The edges of the ruffles will roll up a bit.  Should have done that before I took pictures.

  

I like how it turned out, but somehow hate the color now that it's done.  It's tooooo white.  It makes everything else she wears look brown (I swear they are not!)  I'm thinking of dying it teal?  Maybe like this ombre style onesie from V and CO.  What do you think?