Twirly Skirt Tutorial With Adult Size Adaptation

How to make a Twirly Skirt

After posting this skirt, I decided to make another one to show you what I did. My favourite thing about making the skirt this way is that there are only two exposed seams inside (side seams), and they are the bias of the material so they are nice and tidy - even if you don't use a serger.

The first thing you need to do is make some simple calculations:

1. Measure child's waist. ___ + 5 = width of drop waist panel. This gives some breathing room and seam allowance, but keeps it from being too bulky. 

  

     cut 1 drop waist panel  width above x 8" (this will make a 3.5" drop)

     cut .75" elastic to the width of child's waist waist plus 1".

2. Total length of skirt - 3.5" (drop waist) + 1" (seam allowance) = length of second panel.

     cut 2 panels 44" (width of fabric) x length above

     cut 2 strips for hem 1.5" x 44" (width of fabric)

Grown up version: 

For drop waist panel, measure hips (or widest part) and add only about 3". Divide measurement in half and cut two pieces. 

For second panel and hem width, take drop waist width and add 12". Divide measurement in half and cut two pieces.

Now to sew . . .

Fold your drop waist panel piece in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, and iron, then open up and press the long edges under .5". I find it much easier to iron a long flat piece than a tube so I iron first, then sew the edges.

Then unfold the edges and sew the short ends, right sides together to form a tube. Finish your seam and topstitch. 

Fold in half again with long edges inside. I didn't take a picture of this, but it should look like below without the elastic yet.

Next, sew the two large panels together at the side seams to form another tube and topstitch finished seams.

Take your 1.5" strips and iron them in half, wrong sides together, and open again. Fold in the long sides to meet in the middle on the line you just made and iron flat. Fold in half again and iron.

Tuck bottom of large tube inside the hem binding and sew. You probably should pin. I don't.

Take your drop waist panel and sew 1" below top fold, leaving a two inch gap for threading your elastic. Insert elastic and sew gap closed. Now your drop waist panel should look like this:

Sew around the top of your large tube and gather to the same width as drop waist panel. If you need help with gathering, see here. When gathering this much fabric, I set my tension to the highest possible setting and it does most of the work for me, gathering as I sew as long as I don't pull at all on the fabric as I go. 

Place your gathered edge inside the edges of your drop waist panel, about .5" in and pin well. The more pins, the better the outcome I find (although I'm often rather lazy on this). Topstitch around the bottom of the drop waist panel to secure it all.

Hooray! You're done! Go twirl.