Friday, February 20, 2009

A Fleece Skirt - Tutorial

I was recently gifted with a ton of free fabric. Mixed into the stash was some camel colored fleece. As soon as I saw it, I could picture it as a skirt for my daughter. It would be a simple, straight sided skirt, with a bright floral applique on the front. It was going to be AMAZING.

Here's what I came up with.

I took her measurements (21" waist, 9" from waist to knee). I wanted the skirt to be flared, so I cut two identical pieces that were 15" at the bottom and 11" at the top and 10" long.

I cut a slit in the center, top of the "back" piece, to add a button to later.



I left the "front" piece as is.

I cut the slit (about 3" long) in the top center of the back piece, and then put a perpendicular cut at the bottom, about 3/4". I opened up the resulting flaps and sewed them down. This is where the button will go.

I folded the top of both pieces down, about 1/2", and sewed that to make the top hem. (Is it called a hem up there? Whatever.)

I cut a flower out of some craft felt and machined stitched a pink center on.
I pinned the flower to the front of the skirt, and machine stitched that on.


Lay the pieces right sides together, and stitch up the sides of the skirt, making certain the tops are matched up.

When the two pieces are put together, fold up the bottom of the skirt and hem that.

Make sure, when you sew the hem around the bottom, that the side seams are opened up - otherwise you'll get big lumps in the side, and that's definitely Not Cute.

Attach a button to the button flap, and make a slit in the opposite flap that's the same size as the button. After I made my slit, I stitched around it twice to make it sturdy. I cut the slit before I sewed because I wanted to make sure it would match up with the button.

Here's the finished product! When you button up the back of the skirt, there will be a big fold in the fabric - go ahead and pinch that together and sew it up on the inside of the skirt to taper the back side of the skirt. Trim off the extra fabric that you just stitched.

Voila!

5 comments:

Joyce said...

How smart are you??? that is soo cute, great job. I do mosiacs and quilting

Myrnie said...

Cute skirt.

Oh and hey- thanks for spelling voila right! Viola, wallah, wa-la...it's a mess!

Mom's Sewing Vault said...

super cute - does she like it?

Christine said...

You are most talented indeed!

Heather - Dollarstorecrafts.com said...

Cute! And I echo what Myrnie said about voila!!!