Simple Gathered Skirt – Josefina style – a Tutorial

For our Liberty Girls club this semester, we’re going to make costumes for the girls so they can dress up like Josefina.  I will have a pattern for the moms to use for the camisa (shirt) but the skirt is just a simple gathered skirt that I don’t feel we need to buy patterns for, so I thought I’d make this tutorial for the moms in our group who would appreciate instructions on how to make one.

This is my first tutorial and I took at least a thousand pictures! ; ) We’ll see how many I end up using… And please, if you feel that I didn’t describe something well, please let me know and I’ll fix it! Thanks!

This is what the finished skirt will look like. Cute, isn’t it?

Before we begin:

** I’ll use my daughter’s measurements as an example. You will need to plug in your daughter’s measurements for her skirt.**

Measure your daughter from her waist to the floor.  My daughter’s measurement was 27.5”

Take that number, and subtract 5'”. So, my new measurement is 22.5”

Add 1.25” for the casing, and Add 1” for the hem. So, my final measurement is 24.75”.

Supplies:

• 2 Widths of Fabric (WOF) x your final measurement.  (Mine was 2 WOF x 24.75”)
• 1/4” - 1/2” elastic the length of the width of your daughter’s waist. (Mine was 21”)
• 88” of 1 1/4” – 1 5/8” white eyelet trim
• red and white thread
• 2 safety pins for use with elastic

 

Instructions:

This shows me getting ready to cut one width of fabric at 24.75” in length. Cut two of these.

 

Open up your two pieces of fabric and put right sides together, pin the selvages together on one side and…

…sew a seam 1/4” inside of the inside edge of the white selvage. (1/4” is usually at the edge of your pressure foot.)

 

You can cut off some of the white if you want to.

Iron your seams.

 

On one of the raw edges, fold over 1/4” and sew.

At this point I would recommend sewing down both sides of your seams a couple of inches. This will just make things easier for you when it comes time to put the elastic in the casing.

Then on that same edge, fold over 1” and sew, this time leaving an open space about 2” wide.

 

This is showing the opening in the casing.

      Next, cut a piece of elastic the length of the width of your daughter’s waist.

 

Put a safety pin in one end of the elastic…

…and begin inserting it into the casing.

 

At this point I would encourage you to pin the other end to the skirt near the casing opening. Once upon a time I didn’t do this step and ended up pulling the end all the way inside the casing… : )

 

Slide the safety pin through the casing…

…until it comes out of the opening again.

 

Pin the two ends together, overlapping about 1”.

Then have your daughter try it on. Adjust elastic length as necessary.

 

Sew ends of elastic together, overlapping 3/4” – 1” using a zig zag stitch.

Then sew the opening shut.

 

Stretch the waistband from edge to edge…

…then move your hands half way around the skirt and stretch again. This will help the gathers even out.

        At this point I would sew through the elastic on the two side seams. This helps keep half of the gathers in front, and half of the gathers in back.

 

Now on the bottom edge of the skirt, you can do the hem one of two ways. One way is to fold over 1/2” and sew all the way around, and then fold over another 1/2” and sew all the way around again.  This is just fine.

 

Or you can fold over 1/2”…

…and fold over another 1/2” and sew all the way around. This just saves you from having to go around twice.

  

Now switch your thread color to white. (If I would have thought of it, I would have done this step first before switching to red thread in the first place! Do this step whenever you want.)  Fold over 1/4” and sew on the end of your eyelet on both ends. Make sure you do both ends the same way!

 

With red thread, sew the right side of the eyelet to the wrong side of the skirt hem.

Overlap the eyelet at the end.

  

 

Now you have an adorable little skirt!!! So fun! The minute I showed my daughter that it was finished, she had to put it on and has been wearing it the whole day.  Some girls sure love to dress up! 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. (I only used 30 out of my 1000 pictures! : )  Again, if you feel I need to clarify something please let me know!!

Thanks!

Myra

PS I’m linking up with Such a Sew and Sew, Quilt Story, and Freshly Pieced. (Even though this is a finished product, I still consider it a WIP since I still have so many more to do! ) And with Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Whoop! Whoop!