Toddler Skirt
Grade: B
Difficulty: Beginner
Pattern: Twirly Girl Skirt Tutorial
As you can probably tell, this is the skirt I made first, then used the scraps for the matching shirt featured in my previous post. Sorry to break up the matched set, but I felt like the first post was long enough without adding the skirt to it!
Anyways, this skirt was very simple to make, and turned out beautifully! If you have already clicked over to the pattern source site, you will notice that author there only gives the measurements for a size 4 and a size 6. I made mine a size 2, so I will tell you the measurements I used to make it, as well as how to use that math to figure out your own.
Regardless of the fact that I had to (and you probably will too) do some math, I still gave the pattern a B. The directions were very straight-forward and her pictures are awesome! The only thing I didn't get was her strange opening to put the elastic in. I simply sewed all three of my skirt pieces (both the under and outskirts) into their own continuous loops, then attached them to the respective side to the waistband pieces. Because I didn't stitch the two skirt layers together anywhere, the opening for the elastic was still accessible. So you essentially have two skirts, just attached at the waist. Hopefully that makes sense! Other than changing that, the only thing I did differently was to use some pregathered eyelet lace instead of the gathered chiffon that she used.
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| The whole outfit! She's already worn the skirt too, cause really it's for all of fall! |
This pattern is all straight lines, the hardest thing really is is putting on the trim at the bottom, and the elastic casing. Easy for any beginner to do, and if you are wary about doing trims, this is the perfect project to do them on the first time, as the rest of it is so easy!
So the math. For this you need your childs waist measurement, and a measurement on how long you want the skirt to be, once it's finished.
I cut my skirt pieces as follows:
Waistband: 4" wide by 28" long, Cut 2
Skirt pieces: 6" wide by 18" long. Cut 3 each of the outer and inner skirts
Small band: 2.25" wide by 18" long. Cut 3 pieces.
So this is how I worked the math out.
- Waistband length: measurement of childs waist + 10 to 15 inches, depending on the age and size. The smaller the kid, the closer to 10 you probably want to be, and visa-versa.
- Waistband width: you want this to be about 3/8 of your desired skirt length, plus 1/2" for seams.
- Skirt width: You want this to be approximately half of your desired skirt length, plus 1/2" for seams.
- Skirt pieces length: This is the waistband length minus 8-10 inches, depending on how full you want the skirt to look. If you are doing your waistband 15 inches bigger than your childs waist, doing the skirt pieces 8" smaller than that would probably still give you a very full look. Remember that there are 3 of these pieces, not 2.
- Small band width: Cut as directed in the pattern, unless you are doing this for an older child, in which case you may want to add 1".
- Small band length: cut these the same length as your skirt pieces, so your seams all match up nicely!
