Tutorial: Anthropologie Inspired Ruffled Skirt

First off, I'm going to apologize for the poor photography. I don't know a lot about taking good pictures so I'll try to keep learning but until then, the pictures will be less than ideal.

Here it is! My first finished project for this blog. I saw a tutorial here for a play on this Anthropologie skirt:

(I don't know where to give credit for this since the skirt doesn't exist on Anthropologie's site anymore)

I liked her version of this skirt but I wanted to try making one even closer to the original. I bought this brown polka dot fabric for a vintage dress pattern I found but as I made a practice version of the dress I learned pretty quickly how awful the dress would turn out. So I was left with like 4 or 5 yards of polka dot fabric. As soon as I saw this skirt I was so excited to have a purpose for all of that fabric. I still have a few yards left so I get to make something else all polka dot-y. 

So anyways, here is my finished product! I am actually really happy with how it turned out. 

If you'd like to make your own ruffly skirt, here are a few tips to get you started. I started the pattern from scratch with my slopers* but you could easily make this pattern from a simple skirt pattern. I would suggest this pattern, because of its simplicity, and I would use view A. The reason I would choose view A is because there is no waistband or yoke; you will be creating one when making the ruffles so you don't want two waistbands/yoke lines. 

Here we go on a tutorial of how to do this. I'm a little nervous, so I hope it make sense. If you have any questions, ask away!

What You Will Need

Skirt Pattern

Extra tissue paper

Pencil

Ruler

Paper Scissors

Tape (preferably removable so you don't ruin your original skirt pattern)

Fabric

Thread

Sewing Machine

Sewing Scissors

Pins

Zipper

Interfacing

When you open up your skirt pattern, you will have a skirt front, a skirt, back, and a skirt facing (2 pieces). Ignore the facing and the skirt back for now. Both of those pieces will remain the same. You are only altering the front (unless you want ruffles on the back but I didn't think I need anymore attention in that area).

Since the skirt front is asymmetrical, you will need to trace off a second skirt front onto some tissue paper and then tape the two together at the center front. Now, you will start making your placement lines for the ruffles. First, decide where you'd like your ruffles, I wanted my straight one right at my hipline (just make sure it's below the darts if there are darts on the pattern). The diagonal one is a little tricky. You'll need to decide how wide you want the ruffle, my finished width is about 4". So, the top of the diagonal ruffle was positioned about 2" below my line for the straight one so the straight ruffled covered a little bit. Then, the bottom of the diagonal ruffle was positioned about 4" from the bottom so it ended where the hem did. Here's another confusing part. My sloper doesn't have a hem in place already because it's an unfinished pattern, but yours is a finished pattern and therefore has a hem allowance. View A for pattern B5466 has a 2" hem, so if you have a 4" wide ruffle, the placement line will be 6" up from the bottom. 

After all of that crazy explanation, here is what the pattern should look like after placing two skirt fronts together, figuring out your placement lines, then drawing them on the pattern.

If you are happy with where you've placed the lines, you can go ahead and cut along them! Then you will have three separate pieces, the new "yoke" (#1), the top diagonal that connects to the yoke (#2), and the bottom diagonal that has the hem (#3). 

I could not figure out how to cut diagonally on my computer...so you get to use your imagination :)

The next step is to add seam allowances. First, tape some tissue paper in each place that you cut. So you will be taping in 4 places, one at the bottom of the yoke (piece 1), two on piece 2: where it meets with the yoke, and where it meets with piece 3, and one on piece 3, where it connects to piece 2. All of these 4 placements need 5/8" added from where you cut. Once you add your seam allowances, you can set the pieces aside.

Now to create your ruffle. There are a couple ways to do this, you could measure how long your line was, then figure out the fullness ratio you want (2:1, 3:1), then multiply a bunch of numbers and hope you got it right. OR, I just created a super long strip of fabric that was 5.25" wide (4" plus 5/8" for seam allowance on top and 5/8" on bottom for a hem allowance). You don't have to be too technical about how long to make it, because you can always sew on an extra strip if you need more. A rotary board and cutter comes in SUPER handy for this part if you have access to one. After you finish cutting your ruffle pieces, you are ready to sew!

Again, just worry about the front for now. Start by sewing the darts on your piece number 1. Then sew together your ruffle strips and then gather up your ruffles. Sew two rows of basting stitches, one at 5/8" and one at 1/2", then pull the threads until it's as ruffly as you want it. Then do the hem: fold up 1/4" then fold that up 3/8" and sew. Your diagonal ruffle will get sewn on to piece number 3. You will put the wrong side of your ruffle against the right side of the skirt piece. Then the straight ruffle will get sewn to piece number 2 again with the wrong side of ruffle to right side of skirt. Then sew the diagonal side of piece 2 to piece 3 where the ruffle is sewn with right sides together. So you are sandwiching the ruffle between the two pieces. Then do the same with sewing piece 1 to piece 2, like a sandwich. Also, you will probably need to trim the sides of your ruffle where they meet up with the skirt side fronts. Just trim them so they are straight and line up nicely with the sides of the skirt. Now you should have a completed skirt front and you can continue on like normal. So, you'll go back to step 2 and go to the end. 

I know there weren't any pictures of the sewing part because I sewed this skirt just intending to keep it for me and not do a tutorial. So if I get a good response a.k.a. lots of comments wanting it, I will remake another one with lots of pictures. :) Hint: please comment! I worked really hard on this and would love some feedback.

*Slopers are the basic foundation for any pattern. With a basic sloper, you can make any pattern you want from it. It's all about moving darts, converting darts to different things, and all kinds of stuff. However, that's a whole semester of a class so I won't go into any more detail for now. But here is what a basic skirt sloper looks like: