I made this little skirt for my six-year-old. She’s the picky one, but she actually likes it. I cut the pieces in straight lines so then I used double fold bias tape to make the waistband easier. Love ready-made bias tape. The pattern was sort of an accident as I cut 6 pieces and realized that wouldn’t be big enough, so I made one larger piece for the front (above) with the smaller pieces in the back (below). The striped fabric is from Lizzy House’s Red Letter Day collection and the vintage-inspired floral is Alexander Henry’s My Secret Garden. I might try this skirt design again for my little one.
what a beautifuly sewn job you did! and thanks to your earlier posts with the ugly duckling fabric from Lizzie House, i am simply smitten! i purchased a few yards for a frenchy bag!
Beautiful skirt!
I love this darling little skirt. I’ll have to make some similar for my little girls.
So pretty! You inspire me to sew more. 🙂
Hi there! I’ve been enjoying the projects that you’ve been posting on your blog. I was wondering about something you said about the above skirt. I’m a very novice sewer, and you mentioned 2 things that I was wondering if you could elaborate on. 1. You cut the pieces on “a straight line” – 2. And that doing this would in some way make the waist band harder so you used double fold bias tape to make it easier. Questions… what is “cut on a straight line”, why does cutting on a straight line make the waist band more complicated, and how does double fold bias tape help that problem out? If this is too complicated to explain, then by all means please feel free to pass, but if it’s not to hard, I’d love some pointers. IT’s an adorable skirt. I really like the two fabrics together.
Yes, it probably needed some elaboration. What I meant was that each piece was cut in basically a tall triangle shape with the top missing. So when I sewed the shapes together it made for sort of an octagon shape at the waistband (when laying flat). I really should have curved each piece a bit and probably could have just cut the entire waistband raw edge in a curve before folding over to make the sleeve for the elastic waistband. Since bias tape is stretchy, it allowed me to just fold it over the raw edge and sew along the bottom, forming an opening for my 1/2″ elastic. Really, I was just kind of being lazy.
Fantastic! I have a horrible time with waistbands…they end up not stretching when i sew through the elastic – any pointers? oh – and i’m super lazy. if its hard i wont do it, lol!
I didn’t sew through the elastic on this skirt because I used 1/2″ and wasn’t worried about it rolling over. I’m not crazy about this waistband, but I thought it wouldn’t show. Then my six-year-old put on the skirt and tucked in her shirt! She’s a tucker! I guess I need to add a zipper next time.
But if you are going to sew through elastic, you have to stretch it out as you are sewing. Kind of tricky. I did it here: http://thelongthread.com/?p=527
That is one lovely skirt. Ofcourse your little girl likes it, how could she not! 🙂
So cute reminds me of when I was young I want a skirt with big strips of fabric like that, so my grandma made me a weeks woth of them. I used to wear them with bloomer and go roller skating. 🙂
Thanks for the tutorial link. My 5 year old tucks in her shirts too, lol!
Bias tape as elastic casing? Brilliant!!!
Thanks for sharing.. I might be able to make one for my little one before school starts.
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