Saturday 2 April 2011

Clothes for Granddaughter - Top and Skirt Set

I had some fabric left over from my butterfly top so decided to make my granddaughter a skirt out of it for her birthday.  I had already measured her all over and drew a little diagram in my notebook with all the measurements on like waist, chest, height, length from waist to knee etc.  For the skirt I worked out that I wanted the finished article to be about 30 cm in length.  I wanted the skirt to be in three layers so it gets more flared as it goes down and each layer would be the same length so this meant each layer would be 10 cm finished.  Add on 1 cm each side for seam/bottom hem and an extra 4 cm to the top strip so I can insert some elastic.

This meant that the first strips I cut were 15 cm wide and I cut two of them together and they were 40 cm long.  Next I cut the next layer which was 12 cm wide and I cut two pieces this time double the length of the first layer so 80 cm long.  Then I cut the bottom layer which was also 12 cm wide and I cut two strips each the width of the fabric which was I think about 137 cm.  Next I sewed the two side seams together for each of the pairs of strips.  Then I sewed a row of gathering stitches around the top of the bottom layer and gathered it in until it would fit inside the middle layer, pinned with quite a lot of pins to keep it together and then sewed (right sides together).  The did the same with the middle layer, gathering it in to fit the top layer and pinning and stitching them together.  Then all I had to do was turn up a small hem at the bottom which I stitched up with a zigzag stitch, and then turned over the top making a casing for the elastic about 2 cm turned over.  I measured this first before stitching to make sure it would be the right length and think I had to cut off about 1cm all the way round before actually sewing the casing down, leaving a small gap to thread the elastic through.

Here is the finished article.

I have made a top to go with the skirt using a pattern I bought. 

1 comment:

  1. Les, that little outfit is so sweet. I'll bet she loves it.

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