Toddler Tie Skirt September 18, 2011 – Posted in: Sewing, Tutorials

I love when I have ideas like this one, that come together so perfectly. I decided what I wanted this skirt to look like, cut the pieces, and it took me just a few hours to get it all done–and I was basically making it up as I went along.

But, I LOVE it. And so does Sofie!

It’s got a side zipper hidden by an adorable over-sized bow.

                          

I swear she likes it, she just also likes to give me sassy attitude!

         

I like the way the high waist looks on her scrawny little frame.

                          

                          

Making the skirt was very easy. I just took a few measurements from Sofie and got to work. All I needed was to know her waist measurement around her belly button, and the length I wanted.

Sofie wears a 3T, but she’s super skinny. Her waist was 20.5″ and I wanted it around 14″ long when finished. I also knew I wanted 1 tie to be longer than the other so they’d be the same length when tied. I determined they should be 23″ and 27″.

I only had 3/4 of a yard of this fabric and it was just enough to make her skirt. I also used a 7″ zipper.

Main skirt piece: 16″ by fabric width (45″)
Tie 1: 5.5″ by 27″
Tie 2: 5.5″ by 23″
Waistband (cut from the fabric left over from the ties): 5.5″ by 11″ (if you have enough fabric, 5.5″ by your waist measurement)

I started by sewing the waistband pieces together in the middle with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Iron the seam open.

Iron the waistband in half lengthwise, then set aside.

Gather the skirt along 1 long edge.

Pin the gathered skirt to one side of the waistband.

Sew at a 1/2″ seam allowance, and press the seam up towards the waistband.

Place right sides of the skirt together and sew closed with a 1/2″ seam allowance, starting at the ironed fold in the waistband, ending at the bottom of the skirt.

                          

Iron the seam open flat, including the top part of the waistband you left unstitched.

                          

                          

Sew in the zipper, starting at the top of your seam. I didn’t want to use the entire 7″ of the zipper, so I only sewed about 4″ down and cut over. (Also I didn’t want to change to my zipper foot so I just used my regular one and “made it work”. It doesn’t really matter because all of this will be covered by the ties.)

Cut off the top parts of the zipper.

Fold the waistband in half along the crease you ironed in earlier. Tuck the bottom up so it’s even with the gathers and iron. Square off your ends along either side of the zipper and use pins to hold in place.

Flip the skirt over and top stitch, starting at the top of the zipper, all the way around the skirt, and up the other side to the zipper.

Get the ties and iron them in half. Cut one end off each tie at a 45 degree angle.

With a 1/2″ seam allowance, sew down the long side and along the angled edge. Clip your corners, turn the ties, and iron flat.

I chose to top stitch the ties for decoration at 3/8″ seam allowance.

Now, I cut my ties with the selvedge intact so I didn’t have raw ends. If you do have them, simply tuck them in. I put the zipper on Sofie’s left side. I also tied it on the left side, so I put the shorter tie on that side.

Place the tie on the on the back side of the zipper, pointing toward the back of the skirt, and sew in place. You’ll pull it to the front to tie, covering the seam and the zipper.

Do the same on the other side of the skirt with the longer tie. For me, this was easy because I had the seam in the waistband on that side.

A closer look at the finished side.

Then hem it! I wanted a deep hem on this skirt, so I folded under 3/4″ and ironed, then folded it up 3″ and ironed again and stitched it in place.

She’s already worn it once and keeps asking to wear it again! I call that a sewing success!