I have made several of these skirts now, and love them! You can leave them plain, or add a cute applique, like an owl, and they are easy to make! Ready for the tutorial?
You will need 2 lightly felted (felted so it doesn't unravel when cut, but not stiff like craft felt) thin wool sweaters for this project. I recommend merino wool. The bigger, the sweater, the more material you have to work with.
Your first step is to make your pattern pieces. You will need these basic shapes, a skirt panel and a waist piece:
Everyone is shaped differently, so you will need to determine what you will need, but here is the measurements of the 3 sizes I have made, child, adult s/m, and adult L/XL, to use as a basic guideline:
child (3-6 years old?) - waist piece - 9 1/2" x 5", panel - 3" across at the top, 7" across at the bottom.
S/M adult - waist piece- 10 1/2" x 5 1/2", panel - 3 1/2" across at the top, 7 1/2" across at the bottom.
L/XL adult - waist piece- 13" x 5 1/2", panel - 4" across at the top, 8 1/2" across at the bottom.
You will need to cut 4 panel pieces of one color, and 4 panel pieces from the other, slightly rounding the bottom of each piece (this will keep it from looking choppy). Next, you will need to cut 2 waist pieces.
Take your panel pieces, and start sewing them together, alternating colors, right side to right side. Do not stretch as you sew.
Open that up, and it will look like this:
Now keep adding panels until you are connecting the last 2. It should look like this now:
Now set that aside and grab your 2 waistband pieces. Face them together, right sides inside, and sew the 2 smaller ends. They should now look like this:
Now fold it over once, so the wrong sides are now inside, and the right sides are out, like this:
Now take that waistband, and turn it upside down, and place it inside your skirt waist opening, so all you see is cut edges, like this:
You should notice that your waist is smaller than the opening. Now start sewing them together, stretching both as you go, but stretching the waist band more. If you are afraid of messing this part up, I recommend pinning it before sewing.
Now it should look like this:
Flip the waistband up, and it should look like this:
You're almost done! Now all you have to do is your seam. While your skirt is still inside out, fold up 1/2" of the edge and sew without stretching.
I have used both straight stitch and zig-zag, and they both are fine. It's a matter of personal taste.
You can even cut your pieces using the existing hems, but I don't like how choppy it looks:
Now you should have a super cute 2 tone skirt! From this point you can be done, or you can add an applique:
You can even make a pair of
legwarmers to go with them from the left over sleeves:
The appliques are just felted sweater scraps cut into shapes & sewn on. I recommend not using the lightly felted scraps left over from your skirt though. You will want them to be fully felted, so they don't move around as much when you are sewing them on.
These have been so fun for me to make! Wanna see some of the ones i've made?
My model here is 2 1/2, and she is swimming in my "child" size (the waistband is folded over), but is still so super cute on her!
Here's one I made for camping:
Sock monkey, anyone?
Well, that's it... go make
your skirt! :)
