A fluffy American skirt will make any girl a princess. The abundance of ruffles and frills is perfect for a special occasion. Cutting and sewing of such a skirt is specific and requires thorough preparation.
Instructions
Step 1
Decide on the length of the skirt and material consumption. Subtract 8 cm (yoke) and 3.5 cm (ruffles) from the total length of the skirt. Divide the remainder in half. The upper tier should be 2 cm shorter than the lower one.
Step 2
For a yoke, take a satin rectangle measuring about 20 * 122 cm (taking into account allowances for seams of 1 cm and 0.5 cm for a fold).
Step 3
For the top tier, cut out a strip approximately 7m long and 9cm wide. Calculate the fabric using the formula: 7 m / 1.5 m * 0.09 m = 0.42 m, where 1.5 m is the width of the cut. If your data is different, substitute yours.
Step 4
For the lower tier, cut out a strip of about 165 * 11 cm. Calculation formula: 16.5 m / 1.5 m * 0.11 m = 1.21 m, where 1.5 m is the cut width.
Step 5
For ruches, prepare a strip 44 * 0.07m wide. It can be calculated using the formula: 44 m / 1.5 m * 0.07 m = 2.05 m (1.5 m is the width of the cut). Buy fabric according to these calculations.
Step 6
Cut the ruffles. You can do this by placing a 7 cm wide cardboard strip on the fabric folded in four. Cut the strip, roll it up and set it aside carefully.
Step 7
Cut the tiers in the same way. For convenience, use tier-wide cardboard strips.
Step 8
Arrange strips of different tiers in different piles. There should be four piles of cloth. Gather the ruffles in the center of the strip and secure with the sewing machine foot. Set the upper thread tension to the maximum. Lay the stripes of ruffles one on top of the other without stitching the stripes together. Gather the ruffles for the lower tier and set aside, separate from the ruffles for the upper tier. Gather the top and bottom tiers of the top and bottom skirts into rings. Sew, secure at the beginning and end. Be careful not to twist the rings. Lay the tiers apart from each other.
Step 9
Take the bottom tier and ruffles, spread out facing you. Apply ruffles to the very edge of the tier and sew with a straight stitch. Repeat the operation on the top tier. Gather the wrong side of the lower tier with the foot, or set the upper thread tension to the maximum. Sew the top and bottom tier, leaving seam allowances. Repeat the operation for another set of tiers. Cut the allowances down to 0.5cm and remove the thread that was gathering the fabric into gathers.
Step 10
Gather the top edge of the top tier with the foot, or set the upper thread tension to the maximum. Cut the non-woven fabric into two strips 5 cm wide and glue to the long edges of the satin rectangle with an iron. Straighten the edges with scissors. Fold the rectangle in half. You should get a rectangle 19cm by 61cm. Secure with pins, mark the middle of the seam with chalk and set aside 3 cm from it. Put another mark.
Step 11
Sew the rectangle into a ring, stitching from the marks to the edges. Turn the yoke over your face and fold it in half. There should be a front side on both sides. Press the fold down without ironing and secure with pins. Sew the fabric in a circle 3.2 cm from the fold. Then again 2.5 cm from the first line, attach the gathered side of the skirt to the taped edge of the yoke. Accept. Sew a yoke with a skirt, finish the edge.
Step 12
Repeat the same for the second skirt, stitching it to the other edge of the yoke. You should have an underskirt and an overskirt sewn to the edges of the bent yoke. Cut the tape into two equal pieces. Sew the ribbons with a zigzag to the elastic, at a distance of 1.5-2 cm from the edges. Use a safety pin to thread the elastic into the yoke. Sew the edges of the elastic in a zigzag pattern, overlapping. Using hot scissors, carefully trim the edges of the tape diagonally. Tie the ribbon with a bow.
Step 13
Another way to sew an American skirt is even easier. It needs 3 wide ruffles. Ruffles are sewn to their lower part. In order to correctly calculate the required width of the frills, you need to measure the length of the future skirt from the waist to the hem and subtract 8 cm from the obtained value (the length of the yoke), and then another 3.5 cm - the approximate length of the ruffles themselves. The resulting value must be halved. If you want to arrange the layers of the skirt in tiers, make the bottom layer 2-3 cm longer.
Step 14
To make a yoke, draw a rectangle that is 122 cm long and 20 cm wide. When cutting the fabric, remember to add 0.5 cm at the fold and about 1 cm at the seams. The upper tier for a very fluffy skirt should be equal to about 7 meters. And the lower tier should be even larger - by 1.5-2 times. The length of the ruffles should also be 1.5-2 times the size of the ruffles themselves.
Step 15
Start cutting strips. To make them even and neat, it is recommended that you first cut out rigid rectangles from cardboard with a length of no more than 0.5 meters and the desired width. By attaching such blanks to the fabric, strips of the correct size can be cut evenly. To cut ruffles, you need a 7 cm wide rectangle. Having prepared the strips, you need to wind them into rolls.
Step 16
Now all the blanks are ready, you can start sewing the skirt directly. It is quite difficult to correctly collect layers and ruffles on a hard belt. For beginners, it is best to focus their efforts on the correct assembly of the layers. The detail of the satin yoke is stitched along the short side. Do not forget to leave a small area free so that you can then thread the elastic into it. The resulting ring must be bent in half and carefully ironed.
Step 17
The individual pieces of each ruffle are sewn on the short sides. The result should be a very long strip. Then the frills need to be collected to the length of the yoke. It is better to collect each frill separately, in which case the skirt will be more voluminous. The collected frills need to be swept away with the upper parts and sewn to the bottom of the yoke. Then, in the same way, sew the details of the ruff into a single whole. Gather them up and sew to the bottom edges of the frills. If desired, you can use several rows of ruffles. You need to insert a wide elastic band into the yoke and manually sew the open area. If you have some material left, you can make a bow out of it and decorate the yoke with it.