Here goes nothing... my first attempted tutorial.. bare with me if i am a lil messy with the instructions.. i'm not a pro.. only giving steps on the best i know how... but first... the skirt
What you will learn:
- to take measurements
- to draw pattern
- to sew the skirt (duh)
What you will need:
- Measuring tape
- Cloth (two different colours, about 1 1/2 meters for main colour and 1 meter for inner colour)
- Newspaper
- invisible zipper
- ribbon/bias tape
- calculator (if you dont know basic addition and division)
- sewing stuff (sewing machine, thread, washable pen, and stuff that i can't think of right now but might mention it later in the instructions :D)
ok first lets start with the not so fun part.... the measuring!
You will need 4 measurements on the body. they are the waist line (where you want your skirt to start), hip line (your butt circumference), mid-hip length (the length from waist line to hip line) and your skirt length. when measuring the skirt length make sure you measure it where the butt is so that the back of the skirt wont be sticking out (if you know what i mean... cos of the curves of the butt)
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| Where The Measurements Should Fall |
Now for the not so not-so-fun part... the calculations... this is where you will love your calculator more
i will be using a random measurement as an example
Waist line = 26"
Hip line = 36"
Mid-hip length = 5"
Skirt length = 12"
What you need to do here is to make 5 calculations/measurements to be transferred to your cloth. the first measurement (measurement A) is the waist line divided by the number of flaps you want your skirt to have plus one inch of seam allowance. for example waist line of 26/8 flaps = 3.25" + 1" seam allowance = 4.25". this will be my measurement A
Measurement B is the hip line divided by the number of flaps plus one inch of seam allowance. in this case, 36/8 flaps = 4.5 + 1" seam allowance making my measurement B 5.5"
Measurement C is the length of the skirt + 1.5" seam allowance making it 13.5"
Moving on to measurement D and E for the inner cloth colour, Measurement D is the skirt length minus the mid-hip length plus 3" seam allowance which makes it 10" from 12" - 5" + 3"
The last measurement E (PHEWWWW *wipes sweat from forehead) is where you take the hip line and divide it by the number of flaps. round the number and minus 1 inch and multiply it by 2 and add 1" of seam allowance. here's how its done... 36" is divided by 8 flaps = 4.5... round it up to 5... minus 1 and multiply it by 2 making it 8.... add a 1" seam allowance = 9"
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| Example of Measurement And Calculations |
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| Feel Free To Print This Out And Fill In Your Measurements |
Ok if you're still following, YAY you!!! if you're giving up, too bad.... no skirt for you! its not that difficult..... really!
next you will need to transfer the measurements to the cloth... how i do this is i would put the measurements on an old piece of newspaper and cut it out as a template... here's how to draw the template.
for the main colour, you will want to cut the template to a rectangle with a wider base so that you the skirt will be flair and not butt hugging. first draw two lines (black dotted lines) on a newspaper with the length of measurement C and draw a vertical line in the middle of both the lines created (refer to the black dotted lines)
next draw a line on the top black dotted line with the measurement A aligning it to the middle line (refer to the top red line)
Then measure from the red line along the middle vertical (black dotted) line the mid-hip length (green line). from the bottom of the mid-hip line, draw the measurement B (purple line) aligning it to the middle (black dotted) line.
almost there... join the left edge of measurement A to the left edge of measurement B (teal dots) and the right sides together (yellow dots) draw both the lines until it meets the bottom (black dotted) line.
The actual shape of the template is the red lines... cut it out.
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| Main Colour Template |
For the inner colour template, draw and cut a rectangle on the newspaper by the measurements of measurement D x measurement E
Place the main colour template on the main colour cloth and cut the amount of flaps needed... in this case, 8. then repeat for the inner colour template and cloth. i will be cutting 6 pieces of inner colour. you can double the layer of cloth to save some time.
Now to the fun part... SEWING!!!
first thing's first you will want to use a serger to hem the pieces of cloths. If you don't have a serger you can use a zig zag stitch from the regular sewing machine.
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| Hem The Pieces of Cloth Along The Blue Lines |
What you want to do next is to join all the pieces together forming a long piece of striped cloth like below. Place the main colour and the inner colour with the right sides together and align them to the bottom. sew half an inch along the hem and continue until all the pieces are sewn together.
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| Sew The Cloths Alternating Each Other |
after sewing all the cloth into a long strip, what you need to do next is to iron it down... line up the red ends (next to black piece) together and iron the black piece flat down dividing it into half.
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| Iron Flat The Cloth As Such |
when you're done ironing, you will have to sew the line on the hem of the two red flaps (white dotted lines) to the mid-hip length. then also sew the 3 sides of the black cloth (blue line) so the folds will remain folded (lol) and it will be stronger
When you have done this for all the flaps, install the zipper to both the open ends making the long piece of cloth into a loop. this will form the shape of the skirt. all you need to do now is to cut a piece of main colour cloth 3 inches by (waist line +3) in this case i will need a 3x29 red cloth. this will be the waistband. hem all around and attach it right sides together with the top of the skirt.
Then fold the waistband into the skirt (the waistband should be inside to create support but not visible). iron it it flat and sew a line on the waistband and skirt as close to the top fold as possible. this line will give more support to the skirt.
LASTLY!!!! YAY PHEWWW.... fold in the bottom of the skirt twice and hem it...
optionally, you can use ribbons or bias tape to create patterns and stripes on the skirt.
and then VOILA!!!! go knock yourself out with your new cheer skirt!!!!
sorry i dont have real pictures... as mentioned in my previous post i did this skirts last minute.. i will have more pictures in my next tutorial
as for now,
LoveLove
