Making a Pettiskirt with a Ruffler

With Jilli's 2nd birthday fast approaching, I decided to tackle a big project:  a pettiskirt.

I had been wanting to make one for awhile, but they are so intimidating.  After making one, I now know why the handmade ones are expensive!  I've seen many in stores, but they are not nearly as full (less fabric) and don't cost much less than a handmade one.  

I found many tutorials, but decided to follow this one by Make It and Love It.  She purchased her chiffon in rolls from AFC Express--I would totally recommend them (plus they have a link to the Make It and Love it Pettiskirt tutorial)!  They shipped my order very quickly. 

I priced out the nylon chiffon by the yard and by the rolls, and there isn't much difference in price once shipping calculated.  And for a small difference in price, who wouldn't want to have their chiffon precut!

I followed her [great!] tutorial for the first one, the only difference is that there was no way I was going to ruffle 60 yards of chiffon by hand...I used my ruffler.  That created some small problems as it is so hard to calculate the settings on the ruffler so you end up with exactly the right amount of ruffle.  That being said...I ripped out 20+ yards of stitching!  The first pettiskirt took me many, many hours to complete...but my second one took a little over 3 hours!

What I did differently on my second one to make it easier for me:
1.  Use a ruffler (have I mentioned I L-O-V-E my ruffler???)!  I don't think I would have even attempted to to this if I would have had to to the ruffles by hand (gathering stitch).
2.  Minimal handling of the chiffon as the edges will curl a little the more you handle it (I had handled the pieces for my first skirt a lot).
3.  Instead of following the tutorial and cutting the two - 10 yard pieces of chiffon (5" width) and then ruffling each one, I cut a piece of the 5" chiffon 20 yards long and started ruffling the 2" chiffon with my ruffle, sewing it directly on the 5" chiffon...and when I was finished, I cut the 5" piece of chiffon in half.  Perfectly ruffled and I didn't have to worry about running out of the 2" chiffon.

Pile of 20 yards of 5" chiffon with a ruffle...I then cut this in half to make two 10 yard pieces.

4.  Instead of holding the  rolls of chiffon or letting them fall to the floor, I rigged up this holder.  It worked great!  The rolls were positioned so they fed straight into the ruffler.  I just held it loosely.  It took approximately 45 minutes of continuous sewing, with the ruffler, to ruffle the 20 yards of chiffon! 

I used spools of thread to hold the rolls in the right place.

Being fed perfectly into the ruffler!

5.  The tutorial mentioned adjusting the thread tension to help with gathering.  I did this for the other two seams on each layer of the skirt and it worked wonderfully!  I happened to get one of these so perfect, I only had to adjust it 1"! 

1st Pettiskirt

Color:  Arabian Blue (this pic does not show the true color--it is really a bright turquoise color)

2nd Pettiskirt (a gift for Jilli's friend)
Color:  Fuschia (hot pink)
(I also made a hair clip out of the leftover satin and that is clipped to the waistband)

A view from the bottom looking up at all the ruffles!  If you love ruffles, this is a beautiful sight!

I added 3 flowers out of leftover chiffon to a plain tank to go with the first pettiskirt.

Happy New Year!

Where does the time go???
I am getting laid off from work (along with 100+ other people) and crafting and sewing have been the furthest things from my mind this past month.  But...I will be having a birthday party for a 2 year old in 2.5 short months so I need to get my butt in gear! 
Princess Birthday Party...here I come!!!  I did a few things for her birthday party last year, but we decided on a cupcake theme a few weeks before her party, so I hope to be able to a lot more with more time to plan...and possibly a lot of free time on my hands without work! :-)

Canvas Shoes with Bling

From drab..

 

To FAB...

Every little girl needs to have some *bling* in their wardrobe.  And of course, you can't forget that girls, little and grown up, love shoes.  This is the perfect combination of the two!

For the life of me, I could not find plain canvas shoes in a size that would fit Jilli Bean's feet, so I splurged and got the Converse shoes.

I bought the Tulip Heat Setting Tool and got 3mm & 4mm crystals--I do not recall what brand, but they have the glue on the crystal (the first package I bought was adhesive crystals instead of the kind with the glue).  

I didn't want too much *bling*, so I put a 4mm crystal on each point of the star (just the star that was on the 'outside' of each shoe) .  I added a "J" (for Jilli, of course!) in 3mm crystals to the heel of each shoe.

I love the way these turned out!  I can easily change the look by changing the ribbon laces. 

The Tulip Heat Setting Tool worked great.  It is battery operated (therefore I had to take batteries out of the tv remote!).  To use it, you have to move the switch to the 'on' position and hold down the button while it heats.  I used a tweezer to place the crystals where I wanted them, then put the Heat Setting Tool on the crystal to melt the glue.  Because you have to hold the button down, to make it heat up, it will lose a little heat when you set the tool back down...which is ok since the time I forgot to unplug my hot glue gun!

Who doesn't love candy corn?!?

I've seen a lot of adorable candy corn-type outfits out there, but I fell in love with Nancy's Couture's Corn-y Project.  I'm glad I copied her idea for the candy corn hair clip...people finally "got" the outfit once they saw her hair!  I didn't see her tutorial before I did mine...had I checked it out, I would have realized earlier that I did mine upside down!

 

This really was a simple project! I used a t-shirt in each color that was a little big on her.  The top of the white is the hem of the white shirt and I used the bottom of the yellow shirt so I didn't need to hem anything!  I threaded a strip of the white t-shirt through the top (hem) of the white shirt and I was done!  Only 2 seams!!!  I didn't even finish the arm holes. 

Happy (Belated) Halloween!

My little Tutu Tiger.  RAWR!!!  She was such a trooper when we went Trick-or-Treating.  She walked about half the way and kept up with the big kids we were with. 

I made the tiger outfit to go under her tutu--it is bloomers...that go up really high.  I added snaps in the crotch for potty emergencies.  I also made the ears, tail and shoe covers.

And this is what 54 yards of tulle look like!

Pleated Skirt Tutorial

What girl doesn't want a fun pleated skirt?!?  This would also make a great skirt for a cheerleader costume for Halloween!

This is a pretty simple tutorial...if you can sew a straight line and use an iron, you should be able to handle this. 
Enjoy!

I cut my strips 3" wide and 10" long.  Why 3"???  Because that's the width of my ruler! LOL! My daughters waist is about 20", and I used 9 strips of each fabric to make the skirt about 24".

From Pleated Skirt

Start with one of each strip.  Put the right sides together and sew a seam down one side--my seams were 3/8". 

 

Press the seam open.

Fold the strips (wrong sides together) and press the strips together so the seam is right along the edge.

Take the strips back to your sewing machine and sew another seam (same width as you made your previous seam) along the edge you just pressed.

From Pleated Skirt

Take another strip of fabric (alternating the fabric pieces as you go) and repeat the same steps. 
I found it worked best to do each of the above steps to each piece as I went, rather than sewing the all the pieces and then ironing/sewing the second seam on each piece.

To finish, sew each of the end pieces together (they should not be the same fabric) as you did above.
It should look something like this:

Whatever fabric you plan to have on the inside of the pleat, put that in the center.  Take the seam that is on each side and bring that to the middle. 

From Pleated Skirt

You can either pin each pleat around the skirt and then sew each pleat...or I had better luck folding each pleat and putting a few stitches in to hold it in place as I went. 

You can do the waistband however you would like.
I took a 2.5" strip and folded it in half.

From Pleated Skirt

Pin the strip to the outside of the skirt.

Sew the waistband to the skirt--make sure you adjust your seam allowance to cover the stitches you sewed to keep the pleats closed.  Also make sure the inside pleat feeds through without getting bunched up.

I used the serger to finish the seam--you can also zig-zag along the edge.

From Pleated Skirt

I used the serger on the hem so I didn't have to do a double fold. However you choose to finish your hem, make sure the outside seam on each pleat is facing whatever direction it needs to--I tend to forget about that part and have to take out my hem as the seam on the pleat gets folded the other direction and sewn down (hope that makes sense!).

From Pleated Skirt

I also made a denim skirt. I upcycled a pair of my husband's jeans that didn't fit him anymore. They were a nice, dark, lightweight denim. I salvaged the original waistband from the jeans to make a waistband for this skirt. I also made adjustable elastic (I sewed a few button holes in a piece of elastic) and sewed a button on each side so the skirt can grow with Jilli Bean.

From Pleated Skirt