Ready...Set...

Taylor came to spend the afternoon with me and she loved the little skirt I bought for her while on my trip. When I asked if she thought she’d like another one - different look, same skirt - she loved the idea. Then we went shopping in the stash and settled on what we’d use for the rip-off. We chose a more busy, colorful fabric for the rip-off because this fabric will go with lots of different colored tank tops. You know there are probably at least 20 different colors in tank tops available at various bargain outlets, and the shoe choices (probably all some variety of flip-flops) will be endless. I think we’ve got a plan. And an extra bonus for Taylor is that we can use pink fabric for the lining. Pink just makes a girl feel good somehow.

You can easily make this skirt for any sized child, although I think you’d want to resize some elements such as the ruffle at the waist for a smaller child. Since the skirt fit Taylor perfectly, I am merely measuring the elements in the skirt. You will need to measure your child, consider the width of your elastic, choose your hem depth and ruffle depth, etc.

As you can see, the total length of this skirt is 19" and it fits a long-legged 13 year old that wears an adult size 2. If you are measuring your child, consider the center of the elastic as the waistline. The ruffle extends above the waist. And this skirt is cutest if it is above the knee.




If you allow 1/2" for the seam allowance, you will add a total of 3" to the finished skirt length for the wrong side of the ruffle, elastic casing, and seam allowance. Also add whatever hem allowance you desire. The sample had a 2" hem allowance, but I'd need 3" to make me happy. For my rip-off skirt, I'd cut or tear an unfinished skirt length of 25".




I went ahead and measured the size of the elastic casing, which is a scant 1". That would probably work fine for me as I have 3/4" elastic in my stash. The size of the casing can be adjusted to your preference. Just be sure the casing is large enough to allow the elastic to slide in easily.



As you can see, the finished lining length is 15". You will need to add the seam allowance and hem allowance, which in my case will total an additional 1 1/2" to equal a 16 1/2" unfinished lining length.





If the measuring tape and sash were flattened and measured precisely, the width is really about 1 3/4", so I will cut my sash 4" wide, fold it in half right sides together, and stitch a 1/4" seam. I did measure the length of this sash and found it to be 72" long. My sash will definitely have a center back seam to arrive at the 72" length.

While I was measuring, I thought I'd go ahead and measure the sash loops. There are 6 of them - 1 at each side and 1 at the halfway points between the center front and sides and the center back and sides. They finish at 3/8". They will need to be long enough to turn under and stitched down far enough apart to allow easy passage of the 1 3/4" sash. A 2 3/4" length loop should be safe since you've got to turn the raw ends under and stitch the ends in place. That would allow you to turn under 1/4" on each end and stitch 1/8" from the end. You'll lose a little in the turn of cloth, so I'd prefer having a little extra room in the loop than having the sash get crushed traveling though.

I did measure the skirt widths and found them to be 23' wide. My skirt fabric is 54" wide, so I intend to use only 1 length of fabric and put the seam in center back, which will give me a skirt circumference of 53". My lining fabric is 44" wide, so I'll cut 2 skirt lengths of lining 27 1/2" wide and plan on 1/2" side seams. If you use 45" fabric, you'll cut the skirts the same as the lining. In the purchased skirt, there were unusually shaped pockets that crossed the side seams. On the busy fabric, I don't think the pockets will add to the overall design, and possibly detract or cause weak points of attachment, so I don't plan to bother with them.

I am set on "GO" for tomorrow and plan to discuss the construction tomorrow night. Have a great Friday!