Monday, November 1, 2010

Adding Length to a Skirt {tutorial}

So my girl has this skirt. A skirt that she has loved and loved, but alas, this sweet little girl just keeps getting bigger, but her love for that skirt has not diminished one bit. So, it needed to be bigger, and longer.

The skirt has an elastic waist, so my first step was to make a small opening in the elastic casing and remove the elastic. Then I placed the edge of the skirt along the edge of the new fabric to figure out how much of the new fabirc I would need. Keep in mind that the fabric that is adding the length will be sewn in about an inch below the top of the skirt, so be sure to account for that approximate inch at the top of your new fabric or it may turn out longer than intended.

My original skirt was sewn selvage to selvage, so that made it easy to figure out the width of the under-layer. I cut what I needed, sewed right sides together (selvage to selvage), hemmed the bottom and serged (but you could easily zig zag stitch it) the top.


Now, turn the original skirt inside out and place it in the underlayer, which is also inside out. Pin the serged edge of the underlayer to the bottom of the elastic casing of the original skirt.



Sew the two pieces together, being sure to leave a 1+" opening where you removed the elastic in the first step. Once you have it sewn, pin a safety pin to the end of your new elastic piece and guide it through the old casing. Sew the ends together and then sew the casing hole closed.

Flip right-side out and admire!

This is such a quick and easy transformation and super frugal, making clothes last a lot longer. Whose to say that next year we may be adding another layer, or perhaps a ruffle, to add some more length to this beloved skirt? And with the cold season upon us, be sure sure to check out my fleece-lined skirt tutorial. I think it would be fun to make the fleece a little longer than the cotton and have it peek out the bottom a bit and maybe trim it with some ricrac. hmmm...

Happy Sewing! And please let me know if anything leaves you confused!


Sharing the love at some of the following:
Monday:
Keeping it Simple-- Motivate Me Mondays
Skip to my Lou-- Made by You Mondays
Sew Can Do-- Craftastic Monday 
C.R.A.F.T-- Making Monday Marvelous
Tuesday:
Today's Creative Blog-- Get Your Craft On!
Creative Itch-- Sew Cute Tuesday
Tip Junkie-- Tip Me Tuesday
Wednesday:
Sew Much Ado-- We Did It Wednesday!
Blue Cricket Designs-- Show and Tell
Friday: 
Simply Designing
Kojo Friday Fun Finds 
Fingerprints on the Fridge-- Feature Yourself Friday 
Tatertots and Jello-- Weekend Wrap-up
Weekend:
The Girl Creative-- Just Something I Whipped Up
Under the Table and Dreaming-- Sunday Showcase

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great tutorial! This would be great for altering thrift store finds as well. Thanks for sharing.

Chelsie said...

That turned out so pretty!

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