Layered Gathered Skirt with Shirred Waist

I was going over all of the pictures in my laptop's picture folder and I saw a lot of pictures of projects I have made over the summer. One of them was this layered skirt I made as a giveaway prize for a giveaway hosted by Maria Isabel of Agape Love Designs (Gotta love that girl!)

It had a matching hair clip, too!

I also found images of this gift set I have created last summer for my boss. This gift set was a custom order which was comprised of a skirt, a bib, hair accessories, a pair of cloth shoes which I made following a tutorial and pattern by Aimee Larsen of Home-spun Threads (She's one awesome lady, by the way! ^^) and as an after thought, I also whipped up an owl plushie with this tutorial we shared months before. You can even find a free downloadable pattern .  Although it was not included in the custom order. I just added it as a gift ^^) 

Today, I will show you how I made this skirt.

I made this one for a 3M size.

Waist band: 2 pcs. (12" x 4")
Skirt: Top Layer 2 pcs. (16" x 5")
Bottom Layer (plain) 2 pcs. (16" x 7")

Let's start with the waist band. Bring the short sides together, wrong side facing together, sew straight stitches 1/8" away from the seam. Sew both short sides.

Turn your waist band inside out. Fold on the crease where you have sewn the straight stitches and sew straight stitches 1/4" away from the edge. We've just made a french seam. I almost always use this when I sew as I like the neat and finished look of it. You can see a clearer explanation of it here.
Do the same to the other short side.

Fold twice (1/4" folded twice under) one of the longer side of your waist band (this will be the top part of your waist band) and sew a hem with straight stitches.  Repeat the same steps for the top and bottom layer of your skirt.

Sew gathering stiches on the unsewn side of your skirt pieces.

Gather your skirt pieces.

Place your top skirt inside your bottom skirt as shown above.

It would look like this when viewed from the gathered side of the skirt.

Sew straight stitches 1/4" away from the raw edge of the skirt pieces just a little above the gathering stitches.

You can finish it with zigzag stitches, coverstitch, overlock stitch. Or better yet, serge it!

Turn your skirt inside out. Topstitch on your waist band.

With elastic thread, begin sewing shirring stitches on your waistband. You can follow the tutorials here and here.

Now, you have a layered gathered skirt with shirred waist. This is very similar to this skirt I made for a niece.

These were the ballerina shoes I made using Aimee Larsen's pattern and tutorial.

I think the skirt with its matching shoes turned out cute! (If I may say so ^^)

I will share with you this matching bib I made later this week.
I hope you liked this tutorial!

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