cutie fruity layered skirt

So I have this problem, it is kind of an obsessive thing. I see something... and I have to make it. I saw a little girl last week wearing a teired skirt, some call it a twirl skirt, some call it a peasant skirt, a layered ruffle skirt, etc. but I call it a cutie fruity layered skirt. I have vowed to stop buying fabric from fabric stores until I use, or reuse at least HALF of what I already own... but I guess going to Savers during their purple tag sale doesn't fall under that category since savers is a thrift store, and the purple tag items were $0.99. I found 5 XL shirts to use for this project.

And I know Addie's only has 4 layers... I will explain that soon! I started by measuring their waists, and how long I wanted the skirts to be. I will use Addilyn's measurements for an example. 18 inches for her waist, and 19.5 for length. This would be about a 3T. I took her waist measurement and added 4 inches to it, which equaled 22 inches to figure out how WIDE to cut the first layer. For each consecutive layer I DOUBLED that. So her next layer was 44 inches, then 88 inches, then 176 inches. (I know that is long, and it required alot of piecing, so if you decided to do 1.5 as much in stead of 2 times as much it would work, just not quite so full!) To figure out how LONG to make each layer figure out how many layers you want, and make sure you are good at math. This is where I goofed up with Addies skirt, I just got the math wrong! Thus, 4 layers instead of 5! I guess when she gets taller I will add a pink layer to the bottom! Back to figuring out the length of each layer. I wanted her skirt to be 19.5 inches long, with 5 layers. For each layer that you want, add about .25 inch to the total length.

.25 x 5 = 1.25 + 19.5 = 20.75 inches.

Then divide that by 5

20.75/5= 4.15 inches.

Just a little more math then you are done!

Now on the top layer, or teir you need to add 1 inch for the waistband! I used .75 inch elastic, if your elastic is thicker, like 1 inch, you need to add 1.5 inches to your waistband layer.

Now put the skirt together! Each layer you need to gather at the top, and then fit or adjust it to fit the layer above. I recommend pinning it, i know it is a pain to pin so much BUT I have done it without and it was much more of a headache than if you just pin it!

I gathered mine by turning up the stitch lenght to the highest it would go and then pulled the bottom thread. Sometimes it helps if you sew two rows and then pull the bottom thread, just in case the thread breaks.

Pair it with a cute jacket, and Ta Da! you have a cutie fruity layered skirt!