Ruffle Skirt Tutorial

Well, nothing like a year late on this! Remember this skirt? How about a tutorial on it? We will call it "The Down and Dirty Toddler Ruffle Skirt".

Ok, this version is for my 12-18 month old, but you can adjust it to fit your own little one's size!

I used an XL old navy tshirt I picked up on clearance for this purpose. You can use any larger tshirt you have lying around too!

First, you will want the base of the skirt, which is also what you sew the waistband to and the ruffles onto. I use the bottom of the shirt because it has a hem on it. I cut it 9 inches wide x 13 inches long (cut through both layers of the shirt).

After you cut it, fold it over and cut a triangular shape off the sides to look like this:

Then I cut my waistband from the bottom section of the shirt. My little one's waist is 16-18 inches (she was sleeping so I couldnt measure her). I cut it 8 in wide x 6 in long (this is through both layers of the shirt). For this, the 6 inches long is good because once its folded over, its a nice wide comfortable 3 inch waist band. make sure you cut the hem off to eliminate extra bulk. The skirt ended up being a little big, so make sure you measure the waist first.

Next come your ruffle tiers. Since its a tshirts, there's no need to hem. That's the "dirty" part. You can, however, serge the edge or fold and and iron and sew, just adjust the material accordingly.  Cut all the way through both layers of the shirt.

The bottom tier used the entire section of the shirt: 24 x 4 inches wide
Middle tier was three inches smaller: 21x 3 1/2 inches wide
Top tier was 18 x 3 1/2 inches wide

Make sure you have a new blade on your cutter or super sharp scissors to give a nice clean line since you aren't hemming edges.

All of your skirt pieces have been cut! Now let's sew.

Pin right sides together on base of skirt and sew sides with serger or zig zag stitch.

Turn skirt base right side out and iron. You are now ready to sew on ruffles.

There's many ways to do ruffles. I set my tension to 9 (the highest) and my stitch width to 5 (the longest). This gathers for me. I also have a ruffler foot and a gathering foot, or you can do it by hand. 

Sew 1/4 inch down all the way around the top of the ruffle and gather. 

Then, the easiest way to keep your ruffle on straight is to mark with a washable marker on the base of the skirt:

Pin onto line, using the side seams to match up to side seams of base.  I pinned my ruffle 3 1/2 inches up from bottom of base skirt. 

Readjust your machine settings and sew on:

Now take your middle tier. Pin right sides together, sew up side (or sides depending on how it was cut) turn right side out and repeat the same process as the bottom tier. Mark your line about 2 inches from bottom tier, gather, pin and sew on.

Repeat this whole process for the top tier.

Now you should have all three tiers sewn on!

My  skirt now had a lot of extra material on the top because I had originally made it 13 1/2 inches long. Cut off that extra material if you have it. otherwise, if your top tier lines up perfect with the top of the base of the skirt, you are ready for waistband!

Now sew waistband side shut to make a tube:

Fold over and iron:

Now mark the center on both sides of waistband for a pin point reference to pinning onto skirt. Then pin on the waistband onto the skirt putting it on like this (make sure the top edge of the base skirt lines up with the rough edges of the waistband:

Sew on a good 1/2-1 inch down, making sure to catch the top of the ruffle edge:

Iron skirt

You can top stitch the waistband or leave as is. 

I linked it up!



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