My First Tutorial!

Sew, for my first post I thought I'd do like all the big name bloggers do and make my own tutorial. I was looking over here at the blog "Crafterhours" (love the name!) and was inspired to make something for my little sisters. Its a take on the same simple skirt that everyone has tutorials for, but with a lil bit of a twist...
Above is some of my personal collection of prints :)

Cut a piece of fabric 2x's the desired length of your skirt (most common withes of fabric will work, 45"-60"). You get the basic shape of your skirt by folding the fabric along one of the salvage edges. The folding you see above is to determine the with, or waistband measurement. (side note: the basic equation for the waistband length of a gathered skirt is the number of inches around the wearer's waist times half the measurement --- meaning = waist inches X 1.5)
once you have this strip of fabric cut, run a stitch along the two long ends, wrong sides together (we'll be making a "French Seam" - I love French seams. No need for a serger that I dont have!)
Then, carefully cut close to this seam, removing the excess fabric.
Now, fold the fabric right sides together and iron down the seam.
above, see the seam on the "inside"
After ironing, run the edge through the machine again to close up the exposed seam.
Turn the piece right side out and you will have an enclosed seam on the inside of a very long tube. With this tube, fold half of it inside itself, thus making a tube half the original size, one layer inside the other (get it? not just in half, but inside itself).
now you can start to see the basic shape of your skirt.
The top of your skirt is the fold. About an inch below the fold, sew a stitch around the waist. start and end close to your enclosed French seam, this will be the back of your skirt. Do not connect the stitch but leave 2-3 inches open to insert the elastic.
You will need to unfold the skirt to get to the opening in between the layers.
Cut your elastic. I always take 4ish inches off of the wast measurement to ensure that the elastic has to stretch a little bit when worn (making the elastic the same as the waist measurement will lead to a skirt around your ankles. *whistle*). Attach a safety pin to one end of the elastic and push it through and all the way around the waistband. I always use two pins, the pin on the other end prevents the elastic from escaping into the pocket when pulling the other end through.

When your elastic is through, attach it to itself and close up the waist band seam.
You can add a tag at this time if you'd like.
Then run a little stitch vertically on the waistband to tack down the elastic and keep it from "floating" around in the waistband.

Below is shot of the skirt with the inner layer hemmed. A simple twice-folded (and ironed) hem works well.
As for the outer layer of the skirt, you can either hem that as well, use bias tape, or use ribbon. I did the latter. Just iron a 1" or thicker ribbon in half and sew it around the bottom of the outer layer.
And there you go! SKIRT!


I would most defiantly love some feed back! Did I make any sense at all? too may pictures? (is there such a thing?) not enough pics?

I like how it turned out. (The skirt, idk about the tut. yet..) I love the fabric, but thought it was a bit too sheer to use on it's own... thanks what gave me the idea...

So, hopefully my brain works in the same way some of yours does and I can call this my first tutorial, or I'll concede to the fact that I'm crazy and will stick to just posting pictures of the finished projects ;D