Dressmaking | Another Crafty Little Blogger

My housemate’s Halloween costume this year was Ariel from the Little Mermaid when she goes on her date with Eric:

She already had a white top and corset but asked if I could make the long blue skirt for her. Of course I said yes and then procrastinated about doing it until the weekend before it was needed!

Luckily, I’d been proactive about getting the fabric and zip! I ordered a couple of swatches from myfabrics.com and decided that their Cotton Twill Stretch in Turquoise was the best option:

I ordered 2 metres of it and a 22″ blue invisible zip.

I measured Lucy’s waist and used it to calculate the measurements for a half circle skirt using this calculator by Patty over at The SnugBug Collective. I subtracted 4 inches for bias stretch as it is a stretchy material.

I took my half circle skirt measurements and drew my pattern on pattern paper and worked out that I would need to have three panels to fit the pieces onto the fabric while keeping the length that I needed. I made the front of the skirt from one panel (i.e. half of the skirt) and then split the other half into two pieces. I didn’t have enough pattern paper to create the full length so I had to wing it while I was marking out the fabric:

What I also realised quite quickly was that my fabric wouldn’t be wide enough to use the angles you see in the photo above so I adjusted my pattern pieces to bring the skirt in a little on each side while keeping the waist measurement the same.

Once I’d cut out my pieces, I sewed the front piece to the two back pieces and attached a waistband:

I then attempted my first invisible zip for the back seam! It wasn’t as invisible as I might like but since it would mostly be hidden by the corset, I wasn’t too fussed. I have decided to invest in an invisible zipper foot for my sewing machine though!

I finished the back seam and then left the skirt to hang for 48 hours in case the fabric dropped. I’ve heard that can happen with circle skirts if you hem them straight away.

I then hemmed the skirt and was pretty happy with the finished piece:

I then made a bow for Lucy’s hair using this tutorial from the scrap skirt fabric (I used felt instead of interfacing as that’s what I had to hand at the time):

Lucy gave the skirt a good press before she wore it for Halloween at the office and the final costume was awesome:

Halloween this year was mostly celebrated in the office for me. We had a costume competition and there were trophies at stake!

I went as a fairy since I already had some wings that I bought years ago. What I needed was a fairy tulle skirt so I decided to make my own. There are plenty of tutorials out there on Pinterest for this and I skimmed them to get a basic idea of what I needed to do before I started.

I bought 3 metres of tulle, 1 metre of black, 1 metre of purple and 1 metre of red from Ebay (which cost me less than £5) I already had some elastic but I wish I’d used black elastic rather than white so consider this if you’re using dark coloured tulle.

I was pleased with my final result!

If you’d like to make this skirt you will need:

Needle and thread (or a sewing machine)
Elastic (black would look better)
1 metre of tulle in each colour you want to use (up to 3 metres) – I used Purple, Red and Black

N.b.If you are a size 8-12 you will probably only need 2 metres so divide your colours accordingly), I’m a size 16 and used 3 metres to make the skirt with a couple of inches left over from each colour.

First measure your elastic to your waist size minus a couple of inches. Sew your elastic together using a needle and thread or a sewing machine. A sewing machine it better since you can use a zigzag stitch to avoid it just snapping. If you are using a needle and thread try to imitate a zig zag stitch as shown below:

Fold your tulle in half and cut into 4 inch strips. Repeat for all colours.

Place your elastic on something easy to work from, I used the ironing board:

Attach your tulle to your elastic by using the fold you already created to cut the tulle to create a loop, tuck this loop behind the elastic, bring it over the elastic and pull the remaining tulle through the loop:

Keep doing this until you run out of tulle or the elastic is full. I started with red tulle and then added in purple and black until I had a full skirt: