Little Girl Skirts

I've had several people ask about my girls' skirts that they love to wear. They are so easy and come together pretty quickly. I made a bunch of them when summer started and they've been really nice in the heat.
A couple of starting thoughts: I always make sure to have my girls wear stretchy shorts/leggings underneath so that they will stay modest. (You know little girls!)
Also, I frequent the remnant bins at JoAnns and pick up any cute cotton fabric that I like. A yard of fabric is more than enough. Plus they sometimes have special occasion fabric that I can make princess dress up skirts with.


The basic skirt is just a rectangle of fabric with a stitched side seam, an elastic waistband, and an easy hem. This makes a more gathered skirt which works well for twirling.
An easy modification on that is to cut the fabric at an angle for the sides and slightly round the bottom and top. Then the sides get stitched along with the elastic waistband and hem. This makes more of an A line skirt (see the bottom example in the above diagram).

A little more fun is the tiered skirt. I followed this tutorial in making mine but rounding or eyeballing the measurements should be perfectly fine. These 4th of July skirts had a larger middle section and a smaller bottom ruffle beacause it worked out better with the colors I used. The skirt below has pretty even tiers of fabric. A very cute skirt and very easy. (don't let the math scare you. :) )

This skirt was inspired by the one below it created by a very talented girl in my ward in Ohio. To make it, I took rectangles of spare fabric, all measured to the same length.
The length I used was the desired length of the skirt plus 1 1/2 inches for the elastic casing. You want to add another inch if you are doing a hem. I didn't for this skirt.
Once you have the rectangle of fabric, fold the rectangle in half, hot dog style, and make a mark halfway along the top edge. Using a ruler and rotary cutter (or if you are lazy like me, eyeball it), cut the fabric in a straight line from the midway notch to the bottom corner. Once you open the fabric this will give you a trapezoid (remember that from geometry class?). you stitch all the trapeziods together along the sides and then finish as a normal skirt. With this skirt, I stitched it inside out so the seams were on the outside and could fray and look a little "raggy". That's also why I didn't hem it, I just stitched a line across the bottom so it could fray as well.


There are all sorts of cute skirt ideas out there. Once you know the basics, they are easy to do. Look around online for some more ideas to make your own.

Here are some websites with basic, yet pertinent, sewing instructions:
Elastic Casings
How to sew a Hem
Have fun!