the fairy-tale skirt tutorial



Sewing this skirt was easy and fun! Not to mention, the end result is just too dreamy. I don't know about you, but I have no problem feeling like I belong in a children's storybook for a day. It took me around an hour and a half to sew.



Sewing this skirt was easy and fun! Not to mention, the end result is just too dreamy. I don't know about you, but I have no problem feeling like I belong in a children's storybook for a day. It took me around an hour and a half to sew.

Materials:

1. Sewing Machine

2. Lining Material (I used about 2 yards, but it will depend on your measurements and how long you want the skirt, and then you will need a little extra to make a waist band)

3. Tulle (I used 6 yards)

4. Matching thread

5. Zipper (I used a 24 inch length, and trimmed it a couple inches)













JavaScript is currently disabled in this browser. Reactivate it to view this content.



The first step is making the solid part of your skirt, which can be done a couple different ways. You could either sew a gathered skirt and put in a zipper, or sew a circle skirt with a zipper. I wanted to try my hand at making my own circle skirt, so I did that for the base of my project. The cool thing about circle skirts is that there are so many different tutorials that teach you how to draft your own pattern using your own measurements. Here is one site that teaches you how to make adult and child circle skirts. Either way, sew a skirt, put in a zipper, and hem it before you start on the tulle.

For the layers of tulle, I used the Elizabeth Gathered-Waist dress from BurdaStyle. Remember how earlier I mentioned that instead of a circle skirt, you could just make a gathered skirt? If you have this pattern that it works perfectly! For the tulle, I increased the width of the pattern so that it had more of a poof to it.









I do my gathering first before I sew the side-seam. To make things easy, I didn't sew the side-seam all the way up and I didn't try to attach it to the part where the zipper is. So essentially, the opening on the side-seam is the length of the zipper. When doing research on sewing tulle, most said to do a zig zag stitch. Or you could not sew a side seam at all, since it kind of blends together.



Before attaching them to the skirt, feel free to pin! Here is what mine looked liked pinned.



I really wanted my skirt to have layers of tulle, so to accomplish this I got 6 yards of tulle. I realized that cutting individual strips of fabric would be too much, so I used a different method. When you buy fabric at the store from the bolt, it comes already folded in half. I left my tulle folded in half, and cut it into two strips, each measuring 3 yards long. When sewing the stitch so that you can gather the fabric, I sewed it along the fold of the fabric. Remember, you want to gather your fabric to the same length of the waist measurement.I do my gathering first before I sew the side-seam. To make things easy, I didn't sew the side-seam all the way up and I didn't try to attach it to the part where the zipper is. So essentially, the opening on the side-seam is the length of the zipper. When doing research on sewing tulle, most said to do a zig zag stitch. Or you could not sew a side seam at all, since it kind of blends together.