Ruffle Skirt

I bought a dress at the thrift store about two months ago that I loved. I didn't really need to do anything with it except take out the shoulder pads, fix a small rip and shorten it by about a foot.

But it's so pretty. Black with white polka dots and mini pearl buttons down the front. Love.

I kept the scrap of fabric I cut off the bottom and wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it. But last night, I made a really adorable skirt for my little girl.

Guys, I really need a better camera.

That said, here's what I did, in case you want to make something similar.

Measure your little girl's waist and double it. In my case, hers was 20", so I cut two strips of fabric 40" long and 9" tall. On my fabric, I was able to keep the bottom hem of the dress to use as the bottom of each ruffle. But if you don't have that luxury, you'll need to hem each strip.

For the top of the ruffle, you'll need to fold the top over .5", then fold again another .5", so you'll strip will be about 7" or so, depending on how deep you made your hem.

You don't want to secure the stitch at the top because you're going to ruffle the top by pulling the top string and pushing the fabric toward the center. See here for more specific tutorials on the ruffle. She explained it better than I could! You'll want to continue to gather until the top of the strip is 2" longer than your daughter's waist.

Ruffle each strip, then sew the sides together, making sure you secure the top where you ruffled the fabric so the ruffle doesn't come undone. Each strip should be about 1" wider than your daughter's waist.

Next, I took a pair of bloomers and attached the ruffles to them. One went around the elastic on the top, and the other went about 4" down, right above the leg holes.

And that's it. I put two buttons from the bottom of the dress on the top of the skirt. Now we have matching outfits! So excited!

I added two of the pearls to the front of her skirt. Now we can wear matching outfits! I'm SO excited!