#skirt tutorial

(It's been entirely too long since we've started a tutorial with a very blurry picture, which is a 20dollarlolita tradition. Am I about to fall over and only staying upright because of a death grip on this trim? Stay tuned to find out)

Let's make a skirt.

There's a lot of lolita fashion that doesn't fit most people. It's me. I'm most people. I'm going to wear it anyway, so I'm going to resize that to fit me.

The hardest part of resizing a lolita skirt (or skirt part of a dress) is that you almost never can get the fabric that the skirt was made out of. Lolita prints are usually pretty limited run. While some dresses will let you redistribute the fabric to have a slightly less full skirt, that's usually a major reconstruction that ends up drifting a bit away from the lolita shape.

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A ruffled bustle bustle, however, is pretty common. Bustles like this are pretty common in lolita fashion and add an additional detail. In addition, you can make the waist of the skirt several inches bigger without a problem, and without compromising skirt fullness. If you ever want to undo the alteration, seaming the skirt back up is not very difficult. It's not a fully seamlessly reversible alteration, but there's far worse things you could do to the garment (ask me about my AP dress with mesh pits).

The problem is that bustles like this take quite a bit of energy and fabric, especially if you want to have details like lace trim. It's one of the more time-consuming alterations to do.

Or you can make one bustle/ruffle underskirt, one time, and wear it with all your skirt and dress modifications. You can splurge and get some nice trim and get some nice fabric, because you only need to buy it once. You can also wear it as a standalone skirt. (Just remember to never, ever steam it before taking pictures. You wouldn't want to look competent)

I put off making one of these for a very long time, because I'd made the process much more complicated in my head than it turned out needing to be. Once I was building this and realized I needed to simplify the fuck down, this became a really easy project.

Materials: I decided to make the ruffles on my skirt out of eyelet lawn, which is a cotton fabric that has an all-over embroidery. I got this for about $10 a yard on ebay. I don't have a very accurate judgement of how much I used on the skirt. I bought 4 yards and used probably 3.5, but I also wasted a bunch of fabric on an extra tier that I had to chop off. I wanted a fabric with more detail than broadcloth, but that wasn't exclusively going to work with OTT styling.

I got 30 yards of 1/2" Venise lace off cheeptrims.com for $9. I really recommend putting lace on your ruffles if you can. It really adds to the detail level, and you only need to buy it once. You already have to hem all of this so you might as well hem it with lace.

You will also want some fabric for the slip layer (for want of a better term) to attach the ruffles to. My ruffles were a little bit sheer, so I wanted an opaque base fabric for modesty. Depending on the look you're going for, you can also use this layer to add some subtle detailing or changes to the finished look. If you're only wearing it with over-the-top looks, using a base fabric with shine or glitter can stop your ultrabustle from looking too plain. If you're wanting your ruffles to lay flatter, getting a soft fabric with a lot of drape will make the ruffles droopier. I just used some weird cotton plainweave that I got at Green Store for 75% off due to a bolt-long defect.

I used 1" elastic in the waistband here, because this skirt can get a little bit heavy, and then you often have another skirt on top of it adding to the weight.

The other thing that I used that made this much easier was a ruffling attachment for my serger. You don't need to use a serger, but a ruffling or gathering attachment that allows you to ruffle a flat strip of fabric and sew it onto another piece of (not to-be-ruffled) fabric will speed things up considerably. I know a lot of people buy a ruffler or a gathering foot when they start sewing lolita, and then are disappointed when they don't use it very much. There's a very limited number of lolita applications for these attachments, and I'm happy to tell you that this is one of them. If you don't have one, you don't need to go buy one. You can just do the two-step process of gathering the fabric and then sewing it on. But if you wanted an excuse to go buy one, well, you have one.

The Plan:

So I'd previously made a lot of math and calculations for how each tier was going to gather into the previous one, and then realized during the build phase that actually was way too complicated.

What we need is a rectangle with ruffles on it gathered into a waistband. Yes, a rectangle. I know, I was stunned too, but the final result worked the best.

I wanted the tops of the ruffles to be hidden in seams. If you just sew ruffled strips onto a single piece of fabric, it's very difficult to hide all the raw edges and to make sure you're not spreading loose threads all over the place. We're going to make ruffled strips, and sew them to each other. This covers up the raw edges very nicely.

This also will allow you to slightly gather the second and top tiers to each other, if you want to make this skirt in an a-line instead of a bell/cupcake shape.

The Math:

If you know what skirts you're planning on wearing your ultrabustle with, it can help to measure them and get a good guideline.

Generally, you want your ultrabustle to be a number somewhere within these guidelines.

~~Close to the same length of the skirt you're wearing it with or ~~4"ish longer than the skirt you're wearing it with. (This depends on if you want the bottom ruffle to stick out. If you're Tallita and all the skirts and dresses you're resizing are also too short, you might want this to double as a ruffled underskirt) and ~~An acceptable length to wear as a skirt all on its own.

My first run at this ultrabustle was WAY too long, and after chopping off the entire top tier, it ended up being either 1" shorter or 1" longer than the skirts I'm planning on wearing it with, which is a great number for me.

As for the total fullness of the skirt, you have to remember that the ruffles will add visual volume to the skirt. This means that you don't actually need the hemline of your skirt to be super full. All that matters is that your petticoat can comfortably squeeze in there. For this, I measured the hemline of the smallest dress that I had that still fit my petticoat, and used that. It turned out to be about 80" around.

So, what sizes do we cut this at? It's math time.

Here's a worksheet if you want. You're going to need to know how long you want the finished skirt, how wide you want the hem of the slip (not the ruffle) of the skirt, how many ruffle layers you want, and your waist measurement.

The slip needs to be shorter than the ruffles, so it doesn't show. So total slip length is your skirt length minus 2.5". Divide that by the number of ruffle layers that you have, and you'll have how long to cut each of those. This is slip tier short side.

Each ruffle layer needs to be longer than each slip layer, so that the slip doesn't show. You want each ruffle to overlap the previous one. So, take your slip tier short side and add 2-3" (or more, if you want). This is your ruffle short side.

Your finished slip diameter is your slip tier long side. That one's easy.

If you're a math and planning person, you can determine your ruffle long side measurement. You'll want to take a piece of your fabric, cut to the ruffle short side measurement and also about 45+ inches wide, and a piece of your slip fabric. Run them both through your gathering attachment so that your ruffle fabric is sewn onto your slip fabric. If you like how that looks, you can then measure the finished length of the ruffled fabric and use that to calculate how much fabric you'll need for the ruffles. There's four places where people mess this up. First of all, if you're using your gathering attachment to sew and gather at the same time (which is the point of that attachment), you want to do all your test runs gathering it onto a fabric. The amount of fabric that goes into a machine ruffle changes depending on if it's onto fabric or just gathering. Second, you want to use your finished fabric, at your finished ruffle length. Different fabrics will ruffle different amounts, and different ruffle widths will look different even at the same gathering amount. Third mistake people make is to not gather a long enough strip. The longer a strip you gather, the more accurately you can measure how much fabric is actually going into your ruffle. And the fourth is to take that measure as an accurate one, and not plan for needing extra fabric. The upside of the gathering attachment is that it will save you so much time. The downside is that you can't be as accurate with knowing how much fabric you'll use. Remember, you can always turn the leftovers into a matching accessory. Even if you're going to go yolo like I did and not do the math about how many ruffles you need, you will still want to run a check that you like how your ruffling attachment looks. You don't need to measure super accurately, but try to get a feel for how much fabric is going into each ruffle. For example, if your ruffler takes a strip and makes it 1/3 it's flat size, then you'll need more fabric than if your ruffler makes it 1/2 it's flat size. If you're really on a budget, you can just cut your ruffles at 2.5x your slip long dimension and precisely gather by hand. My time's worth something to me and so it wasn't worth it to do that just to save a yard of $10 fabric.

The last part is just to check that your ruffle long dimension (or it's rough approximation) is still at least 2.75x your waist measure (3.25 is better). If you don't have that, your skirt likely won't look full enough for a lolita silhouette. If that's the case, just add to your skirt dimension until it is.

Actually making it:

Before you forget, cut out a piece for your waistband. You can decide if this looks better in your ruffle fabric or your slip fabric (I used slip). This piece should be 3ish" longer than the distance around the fullest part of your booty. You need this to be longer than your booty distance so that you can get it on your body. If you're using 1" elastic, you want this piece to be a minimum of 3" wide.

I've found that the easiest way to do this is to start out by making the whole skirt as a single, very long strip. So, I take my slip tiers and cut them all out, and sew them into a long strip.

On my specific fabric, I decided that I wanted the pattern on the eyelet to go lengthwise. So, instead of cutting the fabric across the grain (short side, selvedge to selvedge) like I normally would, I cut down the 4 yard length of the fabric. This meant a lot less seaming. Since I didn't really know how much fabric I was going to use (you know that test I described to check how much fabric you're going to use? Yeah, guess who didn't do that), I just cut them one 4-yard strip at a time. I'd ruffle one all the way, stop, and cut the next one. This did actually save me quite a bit of fabric versus cutting them all at once. I had to go back and sew the sides of the ruffle together once the skirt was done. It was a small price to pay for the convenience I experienced.

I knew what size I wanted the finished ruffle length to be, but I cut my ruffles about 2.5" longer than that. I wanted a little bit of wiggle room once the skirt was done, so that I could do the length adjustment once the whole skirt was assembled.

And then, it's just a matter of letting the ruffler do its work. My serger ruffler works by you putting the item to-be-ruffled on the bottom, and the item to attach the ruffle to on the top, and then just hitting go. Some other rufflers work by putting the to-be-ruffled at the top, so you can see it as you go. Like all sewing machine attachments, if you're not sure, just go on youtube and search "HOW SINGER GATHERING FOOT DO THING NOT LOOK LIKE SHIT?" and someone's probably made a video of it.

So, once you've run all your ruffle through your machine, you should have a nice single strip of slip fabric with a ruffle on top of it. Now, some gathering attachments don't actually sew super strong seams, because you have to adjust tension or stitch length pretty severely to get it to ruffle like you want. The other advantage of putting the ruffles in a seam instead of just topstitching them onto a piece of fabric is that it doesn't matter how strong your ruffle attachment is, as long as it's strong enough to hold until you can put the ruffle in the seam. The seam provides the strength.

Once you have your single long ruffle, cut off a section that's the diameter of your bottom tier.

Now you just need to sew them together (and finish your inside edges). I like to start at the bottom tier and go up.

For each tier, you're sewing the bottom of the slip layer to the top (ruffle and slip) of the tier below. Just pull the ruffle of the higher tier out of the way, put right sides together, and sew.

If you aren't using a serger, you can zigzag over your edges and then trim them down, use an overcasting stitch from your sewing machine, or topstitch some seam binding over the seams. The extra line of stitching on the slip layers in front won't be visible. One of the other nice things about building this in the way we have is that, when you finish the edges of your inside seams, you're putting three layers together and finishing it as one. This is actually a lot less then 1/3 of the work of finishing them separately, because you'd have to finish the ruffle as a flat piece, which would take way more time. Have I convinced you on the greatness of this technique yet?

Continue cutting pieces off your ruffle layer and stacking them until you have as many layers as you decided you were going to have.

Once you have your layers all stacked up on each other, it's time to sew the skirt back seam. I find that it looks best to hold the ruffles out of the way, sew the slip together, and then go back and sew all the ruffle pieces. Basically now is a good time to just check for any ugly spots and to touch them up.

There's like 50 ways to attach a waistband to a skirt. For this one I used this method (what a blast from the 20dollarlolita past we have there. Also please note that the cost of ruffler feet seems to have gone up from $15 to $60-$100 in the past 10 years and despite working in a sewing machine store, I'm not totally sure why).

Once you've got the whole skirt assembled, it's time for the finishing.

The first thing that I did was put it on and try to judge how short I wanted my top ruffle. I'd cut all my ruffles extra long in the short dimension, so that I could shorten them when they were on the skirt. I picked a length that worked, marked it out, and chopped at that point. I then did this for the other two layers. I found that I wanted my bottom ruffle to be a little bit longer than my top ones, and cutting it long allowed me to make that choice.

I then started just zigagging on my lace. If you don't have a serger, you can use the lace as a hem finish, which also saves you an additional step. The lace really added a lot to this, and since I only need to make this once to wear with a lot of different garments, it was an economical use of nice lace.

I started putting the lace on the top layer first. This is because, if I ran out of lace, having a different (wider) lace on the bottom layer wouldn't look strange. As previously mentioned, I did zero measuring of how long my ruffles are, and had no idea if 27 yards would be enough lace. Don't be like me. Do some tests. Or be like me and choose the life of treachery. Anyway, stick lace on this thing, please. You worked hard and your skirts deserve it.

The only other thing that I did was to cut the slip layer down by about 3" on the very bottom. I did this because I made a mistake, but I like how it looks.

You can take this system of ataching ruffles in rectangles or even a trapezoid and stick it in the back of a skirt (or skirt on a dress). I did that here because I knew that I wanted a pink bustle, not a white one.

I'll do a tutorial for the actual skirt resizing sometime after I actually resize a skirt with this. Here, all I did was slice the back, hem those edges, and then button on some waist ties from another dress. This let me easily add several inches to the back of this skirt, without needing to re-distribute pleats, and without sacrificing the fullness of the shape.

This will all sit a little bit better once I've pressed the skirt, as well. Steaming the top layer of this while the garment is on me/a dress form/a hanger will decrease the poof in the top layer a little bit, and honestly, we could benefit from that in this case.

Anyway, if you have this, you have a very fast way to enlarge existing garments.

So, while this has thankfully very much decreased in the past years, there's still some people with weird opinions on MoDiFyInG bUrAnDo, so let's have a talk. Lolita clothing is not community owned. If someone who was never going to sell a dress to you modifies it, that doesn't take it away from you. This is a mentality that we tend to have in lolita more than other fashion just because of our high resell scene, but it wasn't ever going to be your dress and so you don't need to have an opinion about what happens to a thing you were never going to personally own. Things have value more than money, and value is often changed rather than destroyed. AP's Halloween Treats OP has no value to me when sold for $500 on Lacemarket. I don't spend that much money on lolita, ever. But a questionably-altered AP's Halloween Treats OP that I can un-alter has value to me if the price is good. But a questionably-altered AP's Halloween Treats OP has very little value to someone who likes the price, but can't undo the alterations. When someone resizes a dress or skirt, true, sometimes the people who are the size it was originally made can't wear it anymore. You've decreased the value to them, but you've made it more valuable to people who are the size that you've made the garment become. This skirt had no value to me when it's waist measure is 7.5" too small, but now I can wear it, so it has functional value to me. A lot of people who say that modifying the dress ruins it are either ignoring that also the stress of putting a dress not sized large enough for your body can damage it and not look as great while doing so, or else they have a much worse take. People who say that modifying clothes ruins the garment, but also say that wearing a garment that's too small ruins the garment, what they're actually saying is that wearing that garment is a privilege that should not be extended to larger sized people, and if they say that then they can just, you know, go fuck themselves. We don't need that in the community. Everyone deserves to wear lolita, and some people have to work harder to achieve it, and that's not fair, but everyone deserves it.

So yeah, kiddos! Build a skirt! Go cut up some clothes! Wear the skirts you've always wanted to wear! You can do anything!

Measure your fabric across, waist size, you can make it as big as you want since this tutorial will be using a drawstring and you can cinch it down to the size you want. I like making it bigger than my waist so it drapes and folds nicely

Measure length wise to the size you want. Hips or waist to ankles. Add more inches if you are going to fold the top over for the drawstring. (For this tutorial I will be folding the top over and creating eyelets. I eyeball how big the fold needs to be and make sure it still reaches my ankles) Fold right sides together and cut long way.

Take original fabric (this will be the front and back) and fold in half long way. Place over the other fabric and cut two panels using the original fabric as a measurement. These will be your gussets or sides.

Now cut them diagonally

Turn one side upside down and place on the other side. Example: take right side, turn it upside down and place it on the left side, until you have a triangle. Now sew the middle of each of these.

Once you have created the gussets, sew one to each side of main fabric.

Remember, right sides together.

YOU one person ASKED AND SO YOU SHALL RECIEVE

We all like watching series because they transport us to places we would like to visit or times we miss. In addition, the beautiful outfits they wear can inspire us and make us want to recreate those looks. That’s why I love watching The Queens Gambit.

And one of the locks she wore is a nice mustard yellow skirt with plates on each side of the hip.

To cut the fabric I started by measuring the length I wanted it to be and the bottom with. Then, to cut their waist, I fold it in half so I could mark the middle and from then their sides of their waist, adding the centimetres that the plates needed. After cutting the fabric I then added some pins to keep the plate in place and so their front and back panel together. But only on one side because the other one needed the zipper.

The waistband was really easy to make because it is only a rectangle with the length of your waist and devil there with you want it to be. Once you fold it in half you can attach it to the skirt panel right sides together and then state in the zipper and finish that side seam so you can hem it.

The result is a really nice skirt that won’t go out of fashion, in a nice bright colour that will suit the winter cold with a nice jumper on, or a breezy spring afternoon with a nice blouse.

Basic elastic waistband with and without separate casing NO PATTERN NEEDED

I made this for Den of Angels but thought I’d post it here too. Apologies for having a lot before the tutorial but I’m operating under the assumption that those who are reading this are beginners (which is awesome!!!) This works best for most size dolls, I haven’t yet tried it out for tiny ones but I believe it would work well. You MAY have to switch the ¼” elastic out for elastic thread though, and the casing for the elastic will be VERY tiny. Having a separate casing is a more intermediate skill so if you aren’t confident doing that, that is okay. Also dolls will be referenced in cm, everything else is in inches because I’m one of those backwards Americans haha. Also I apologize for some basic multiplication.

Materials:

~1 tape measure

~About ½ yard Fabric, maybe more if you’re doing a doll that is over 50cm/want a long long length. That being said, it is better to have too much fabric than too little because you can always trim but you can’t add more

~1 package ¼” elastic (you can use elastic thread if you’re making it for a tiny one AND you’re good at sewing)

~Matching thread (or contrasting thread if you’re feeling spicy)

~Scissors

~Ruler

~Pins

~1 Safety pin

~Iron and ironing board

~Chalk/pen/pencil/something to mark the dimensions of your skirt

Optional:

~Decorative ribbon lace for if you want a cute trim at the hem of the skirt

~A sheer/lace second fabric if you want a cute overlay (the easiest way I’ve found to do this is to have the casing as a separate piece, but basically you just lay it on top of the main fabric)

Terms:

~Grain is the lengthwise direction that the fabric goes, aka the width that you choose rather than the set length. Generally pattern pieces are laid out on-grain but can be put on the bias/cross grain for added stretch/drapability.

~Seam allowance is the length of “extra” fabric that ends up being between where you are stitching (stitching line) and the end of where you cut between the 2 or more pieces of fabric that you are sewing together. For this project I am using ½” seam allowance. You can use smaller seam allowance for tiny dolls but I highly do not recommend going under ¼” seam allowance.

~Hem allowance is the length of “extra” fabric at the bottom of the garment, it can be the same as seam allowance but it is generally more. For this project I am using ½” hem allowance

~Case/casing is a “tube” sewn in the fabric so that you can pull a drawstring/elastic through to cinch a garment. It is calculated by doubling your width of elastic/drawstring since it folds over itself

~The right side of fabric is the side where the design/feature sticks out the best aka what you want to be seen when it is finished. MOST seams are sewn right sides together, but there are some seams where both wrong sides are sewn together first (French seam), etc.

~The wrong side of fabric is the side where the design/feature isn’t as prominent, or what is on the “inside” of the finished garment.

**Notes**

~It is not the end of the world if you don’t have an iron and ironing board, it’s just that your seams will look more professional if you iron after every step, I know it’s tedious but it’ll pay off in the end, I promise.

~Also you don’t always have to wash your fabric before making clothes for your doll but if you are worried about the color bleeding onto your doll it is okay, just pay attention to the care instructions on the bolt when purchasing at a store (I don’t know about other places but if you buy it at JoAnn’s you can also see care instructions for your fabric when purchasing online)

~A fair amount of fabrics have the same pattern on both sides, in which case you choose which side you want to be the “right side” and which you want to be the “wrong side.” Alternatively, you may like the “wrong side” of the fabric you chose better than the “right side and want to use it as the right side, which is completely fine! YOU are in charge of the garment, and flipping it around can lead to it being a cool design feature.

~I’m using my 42.5cm Kid Delf (named Valentine/the blue haired gal in this pic) as example, but will mention any differences for sizing up/down when applicable

Directions all views:

1.) Measure the waist of your doll, this is where the top of the skirt will start. You take that measurement and use this equation: [waist] x [preferred level of floof] = [width of fabric you are going to cut]. Valentine’s waist is 5 ¼”, but I wanted a bit more floof so I rounded up my calculations to 6, so since she is MSD size we take 6” x 3 = 18”. So the skirt will be 18” wide BEFORE seam allowance (You can use whatever seam allowance you want, I’m using ½” for safety. You can always trim it later) For larger dolls I recommend 4x or even 5x the width of the waist so that it doesn’t look flat, and either 2x or 2.5x for dolls under 20cm.

2.) Measure the length of your doll, from their waist until where you want your skirt to end. I made a knee length skirt, so for Valentine this was 6” BEFORE seam allowance/hem allowance/casing.

3.) Take your width measurement and add in seam allowance on either side. For Valentine it’s 18” + [½” x 2] = 19”. This will be the width of the fabric you will cut.

4.) take your length measurement and add your seam allowance for the top of skirt. For Valentine that is 6” + ½” seam allowance = 6 1/2”. Add hem allowance. For valentine it is 6 1/2” + ½” = 7”.

For casing INCLUDED/1 piece skirt

5.) Add ½” to top for seam casing. 7” + ½” = 7 ½”. This will be the total length of the skirt including casing, seam allowance, and hem allowance.

6.) Mark then cut a rectangle using the dimensions in step 3 through 5 INCLUDING the seam/hem allowance. 7 ½” x 19”.

6.) On the top fold over 1” of fabric wrong sides together and press. This will become the seam casing. Stitch ½” seam allowance all the way down. Press. Trim excess seam allowance if desired.

For SEPARATE casing/2 piece skirt

7.) Mark then cut a rectangle using the dimensions in steps 3 and 4 (7” by 19”), this will be the main body of the skirt. (if you wanted a second layer then this is where you would cut the same length x width in the second layer and just place it on top of the first layer. You can baste stitch them together at the top)

8.) Mark then cut a rectangle that’s 1 ½” x [result of step 3 plus 1”], this will be the casing. For Valentine it’s 1 ½” x 20”. I added the extra inch in case the case ends up being too short for the body.

9.) Fold the rectangle from step 8 in half length-wise (like a hot dog) wrong sides together and press. Stitch ¼” in from the fold.

10.) Use pins (or thread) to mark ½” in from the top of the main part of the skirt, and pin case to the marked part of the skirt, matching it on the line with right sides together.

11.) Stitch over the stitching line you made for the casing. Press. Trim excess seam allowance if desired.

Continue as follows for all views

12.) Fold up ¼” from the bottom with wrong sides together and press. You can stitch it if you feel like it, otherwise fold up another ¼” from the bottom with wrong sides together and press. With wrong side up, stitch close to the fold that has the top of the fabric. Press.

13.) Cut a piece of elastic the length of your waist plus ½”. I didn’t add the full seam allowance because we want the elastic to be a little more snug.

14.) Take your elastic and safety pin and thread the open end of the safety pin through a good chunk of the end of the elastic, making sure that if you tug on it the safety pin won’t rip out. Carefully slide the elastic + safety pin through the casing, stopping when the end of the elastic that doesn’t have the safety pin is flush with the end of the fabric hole that you put the safety pin in. Thoroughly stitch through the elastic and fabric so that the elastic is firmly in place and won’t stretch. Continue sliding the safety pin + elastic through the casing until you reach the other side, and pin through the elastic and fabric so that they are flush before taking out the safety pin and stitching the elastic into place like step 13.

15.) with right sides together, pin the sides of the skirt together while matching stitching lines, and stitch with ½” seam allowance. Press so that both sides of the seam allowance are open.

Tadaaa, you now have a beautiful skirt!

hhey it’s another tutorial, y’all really liked the first one, huh? This one is centered around one character, but can be easily applied to any tutus, ruffles, or gathered skirts.