Sparkle Running Skirt Tutorial

As promised, here is the running skirt tutorial. I explained it the best I could, so I hope it's clear enough!


This tutorial is written for a skirt to fit my size--my hips (where I wear the skirt) are 35", which equates to 29" unstretched elastic. To make it bigger, add approximately two inches of fabric for every one inch of elastic. (It doesn't have to be exact). The waist band will be very stretchy, so the measurement doesn't have to be perfect.

The finished skirt will be 11 inches long. If you want it longer, just measure down farther from the sparkle line (I measured 12 inches down, but just add however many inches you want to add to the length of the skirt).

Each skirt will only cost roughly $10 to make.

Materials:
1 1/2 yards of fabric (you CAN buy 3/4 of a yard and cut it in half, then sew the pieces together--you will have two seams instead of one) 1 1/2 yards will yield 2 skirts. I will explain this better at the very end of the tutorial.
3/4" elastic, 30 inches long
Thread
Scissors, straight pins, a safety pin, and a tape measure

This is 1.5 yards of fabric folded in half lengthwise. Just ignore the bottom
piece for now. If you want, you can make a second skirt out of it.

The edge of the fabric looks like this (the sparkles start
a couple of inches from the raw edge) This will become
the waistband of your skirt.

Measure down 12 inches from the sparkle line across
the entire 1.5 yards of fabric and mark with a pin
or fabric marker.

I didn't explain that very well, so here is a drawing. You'll cut along
that dotted line where you've measured 12"

Cut the entire length that you just measured. Then it will be 1.5 yards long
and 12 inches (not including raw edge) tall.

With right side out, fold along the sparkle line and pin
it down as you go (see next picture)

If you don't care what the inside of the skirt looks like,
this is the easier way to do it--leaving the edge totally
raw. Since this skirt was for someone else, I wanted to
make the inside look decent ;) See next picture...

Tuck the raw edge under by a quarter or half inch and pin
so that the raw edge will not be visible

When you sew around, make SURE you stop 1-2 inches
from where you started. You need to leave this open in
order to get the elastic in. You will sew it shut later.
Also, make sure you're leaving at least 3/4" from the
sparkle line fold so that the elastic will fit.

The safety pin makes it easier to feed through the tunnel you just made

Or you could do this with just the elastic, before you
put it in the skirt. I didn't think of that until now! ;)

If you're making a larger skirt, make sure you allow an extra
inch or so of elastic to overlap like this

 

Sew elastic together and then stretch out the skirt so that the elastic gets
swallowed up inside of the tunnel.

Stretch it as far as it will allow. The fabric will stop you before the elastic does.

This next part is the hardest part of the whole thing.
You're going to sew through the fabric and elastic,
WHILE STRETCHING THE ELASTIC inside of the fabric.

The fabric will be pulled taut, because you're stretching
the elastic out while you sew. If you don't stretch it out
while sewing, the elastic will be sewn in a way that it won't
stretch any more without breaking the thread holding it
together. You may need to ask someone to give you an
extra hand for this part.

Now the waist band is done, but the bottom edge is still raw. Turn the skirt
inside-out again.

Fold the raw edge up 1/2 inch, and then fold it again so
that it's a nice, neat hem of 1/2 inch. Pin it down like
this around the entire skirt, and then sew.

Voila! A sparkle skirt. You definitely want to wear something under it ;)

---

Now, about buying half the amount of fabric...

I've always bought 1 1/2 yards of fabric for my skirts, but you can also buy half the amount you need. Here is what it looks like when you lay it out, unfolded:

So if you buy less (we'll say 3/4 in this example), here is what it looks like:

Cut along the center fold line, and you will have two identical pieces of fabric. Then you will line up the short edges and sew them together, like this:

Then just follow the tutorial as if this were one piece of fabric.