Sew Charming by Becky: DIY Tiered Sparkle Running Skirt tutorial

DIY sparkle running skirt....

First things first, if you haven't already, please stop by pinterest and re-pin this!
I could win a super-cool sewing machine.... which I would love!

Here's a little something I whipped up tonight. Total cost = about $7.
These start at $30 on the website I looked at, and that was not a tiered skirt!

Looks good right?
You wanna make one right?

Okay here we go... disclaimer it is 1:30 am and I am tired so if I sound like an idiot just comment below and I'll go back through and try to fix it. :)

Here is what you will need:
Sewing Machine
Optional serger
Fabric (I used the sparkly kind) 1 yd
Elastic, your waist or hip size (whereever you like your skirt to sit)
Matching thread
Seam ripper (just in case)
Pins

Okay so step one is cutting
I knew I wanted the fabric part of my skirt to be about 14" so I cut my bottom tier at 10" and my top tier at 6". If you want to lengthen or shorten, you do so while cutting.
Widths are all based off of how full you want your tiers to be. And the most important thing is that you have enough room for your hips! Take your hip measurement and add about 6". You want your top tier to be at least this wide. You want your bottom tier to be as wide as possible so it is very full. If you have a really long stride, you may not want it as full, the extra fabric may get caught between your legs!

When you cut, you want your height to be from selvedge edge up. Your width will be however wide you got your fabric cut.

I ended up with 4 pieces.
Top tier was 6" tall by 25" wide.
Bottom tier was 10" tall by full width of the fabric.

Now, bring your bottom two pieces together at one end, right sides (sparkly sides) together. You will sewing the short sides together (your 6" side) Sew. Repeat this for the other end. Then repeat for the top tier (10" sies together). Once you finish that, switch your stitch to a zig-zag stitch. Zig zag your rough edges. That will be where you sewed your seam (or else it will fray) and then the top and bottom of each tier. (If you have a serger, now is the time to use it! Finish all edges with your serger instead of a zig-zag stitch)

(Right sides together!) The sparklies need to be touching!

Note: When you do this make sure you press one seam forward and one seam back. When you wear your skirt you want the left side and right sides pointing back (look at your jeans if you don't know what I mean)

Okay, now we start putting it together.
Use a long stitch (I set my machine to 4, the longest stitch it has)
Sew from one seam to the opposite side. Stop and cut, making sure you have about 4-5" of thread. Then sew the other side from seam to seam, and cut the same way.

When you zig zag stich around the top and bottom tiers, make sure the seam faces back. This will make it look more professional. If you don't care - nobody else will be looking inside your skirt so just make sure the seams match up later ;)

Now, figure out where your front middle and back middle are. I do this by putting my seams together and folding the skirt in half. Then I mark the middle with a pin. I do this with the top and bottom tier.

Now match up your front, right, back and left (see, this is why we needed the pins) When you match them up, make sure your seams are both headed the same direction.

Gathering thread. You pull on one side of the thread (side here means front or back. Not both)

See the gum build up on the needle? You'll have to clean this off as soon as you see it! If you don't it will break your thread and you'll get very angry - trust me on that!

Now pull on your gathering thread. If you use a good quality thread it should not break on you. Arrange your gathers where you want your ruffles to be. Pin about every inch to inch and a half. You want lots of pins!

Now sew your top and bottom tiers together - be sure to change your stitch length back to a normal stitch length. I overlapped mine by about 2". (Just in case you were wondering how 6 + 10 = 14 earlier, its really
6 + 10 - 2 = 14.... this is where that minus two comes into play. You don't have to overlap yours this much. It just gives it a nice ruffle so I wanted to have a little playfulness to mine.


Stitching the bottom tier to the top.

Take out all your pins.

Now, when it comes to your elastic, you're going to want it 4 inches less than your waist. Your elastic will stretch when you do this next step and if you make it to your size it will be too big! Overlap your elastic one inch and zig zag stitch the loose ends down.


Overlap elastic and zig zag stitch on front and back

Find the front and sides of your elastic. Find the middles of your fabric. Now this time you want to pay attention to which way your seams are facing. You want the seams facing towards the back for less resistance when you run (its more comfortable).... Match everything up. You may even want to match it up in 8ths (you'll use the same folding method to find in between the front and side, side and back, etc).

Your fabric will be bigger than your elastic, so pull on the elastic while you sew.

Then pull on your elastic so it is flat while you sew. I pulled the sparkly fabric about an inch above the bottom edge of the elastic and sewed about 1/2" above the bottom edge of the elastic. That way it had a little bit of a "ruffle" effect around the top.

Not into ruffles? You could tuck the sparkly fabric underneath instead of sewing it to the top side of the elastic if you want to omit the ruffle :) You could also omit the ruffle between the tiers by pinning the top of the bottom tier to the bottom of the top tier with sparkly sides together.

Voila! Take out your pins and you are done!!!

Now go for a run! And SPARKLE!