20-minute Gathered Skirt with Shirred Waistband Tutorial

So, what do you do with a half-meter of pretty fabric? Well, I made one skirt, one sling bag and a matching headband with it as a birthday present to my husband's niece and goddaughter.

Here's the pretty gathered skirt with lace on the hem and a shirred waistband...

And here's the matching sling bag

and headband, especially made for the birthday girl ^^)

Oh yes! I've gone crazy over elastic thread this month! ^^)So, you should be expecting more elastic thread related tutorials. ^^)


And yes, I've made the skirt, the sling bag and the fabric flower out of a half-meter fabric.
The skirt was made for a 4 year old girl. Do adjust the measurements according to your needs.


Now, let's proceed to the skirt tutorial. I will share with you the sling bag and the headband tutorial next week.


You will need:
2 waistband piece
2 gathered skirt piece
lace (optional)

Get your pretty lace and sew it on your skirt piece with straight stitches, right sides together.

Sew zigzag stitches to keep the edges from fraying. Or better yet, serge it!

Topstitch. Do the same to the other skirt piece and lace.

Get your skirt piece and set your stitch length to the longest (in my case, it's a 5.0) and sew gathering stitches (means do not do backtracks on the beginning and end of the straight stitches so you can pull on the bobbin thread to gather your fabric). Gather your skirt by pulling on the bobbin thread and adjust the gathered piece to match the length of your waistband piece. Get your waistband piece and skirt piece, right sides of the fabric facing together and sew them together with straight stitches 1/4" away from the edge. Sew zigzag stitches to keep the edges from fraying. Then take out the thread of the gathering stitches you've made earlier.

 This is what we have as of now.

Topstitch. Do the same to the remaining skirt and waistband piece.

So, you'll have two of this.

Get both skirt pieces, align the sides wrong sides of the fabric facing together and sew straight stitches 1/8" from the edge. Do the same to the other side.

The seam would look like this.

Turn it inside our and press/iron the seam you've just made.

Sew straight stitches 1/4" away from the edge. You've just made a French hem! Do the same to the other side.

Hem your waistband. Or better yet, serge or make some zigzag stitches to get the lettuce effect.

As of now, we have this.

Change your bobbin thread with elastic thread and sew rows of shirring stitches on your waistband. Make sure you've set your stitch length to 3.5 to have a nicely gathered look. After I've filled the waistband with rows of shirring stitches, I have decided to add one more in between each row of sewn shirring stitches since I thought it would look nicer.
(For a more detailed instructions on the shirring steps, check the previous tutorial I have posted)

 Now, we have a nice gathered skirt with a shirred waistband!
Stay tuned for the sling bag and headband tutorial!


We hope you like this week's tutorial and that you'd be back next week for another tutorial.
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Have a lovely week everyone!

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