Basic Skirt/Slip Tutorial

Hello everyone!

For my newest cosplay I'm making something that requires a skirt as a base. Basically, this will be a tutorial on a miniskirt, but you can use it to make it any length you want.

Materials:

- 2 Yards of whatever material you like (for a child, 1 yd might be enough but I'm not sure)
- [Your waist in inches]" of elastic (1 inch wide to 1 1/2" wide) minus 1 inch (length-wise).
-needle/thread or a sewing machine
-scissors and/or rotary cutter
-yard stick or a cutting board that is 1 yd long/wide
-measuring tape
-2 safety pins

In case you're confused by what I mean by elastic: Measure your waist in inches. Mine is 40". Then minus 1 inch. That makes my amount 39". If you want it really tight, then take off 2 or 3 inches. Make sure you can stick two fingers between your skin and the elastic.

For finding the correct amount of yardage for a child, get measuring tape and wrap it around them 1 and 1/2 times.

Cutting:

Lay out your material onto a cutting board, or on a hard flat surface. If you have two yards already measured out, then you don't need to worry about this next bit. But if you're like me and had about 4 yards, then measure out two yds length-wise and cut width-wise (the shorter side)

Now that you have two yards, its time to figure out how long you want your skirt! Make sure you measure from your waist (or wherever your pants usually sit) down to where you want them. I wanted mine to be about 15-16 inches, and I added two inches to make room for the hems and elastic. Cut this length-wise (longways) until you have the desired length.

Heming:

Find where you want the bottom of the skirt to be. Fold the material up 1/2 inch and sew along that. Viola! You have your hem! For the elastic, you're basically doing the same thing... kinda.

Putting in the elastic:

Alright for this next part, it really depends on how wide your elastic is. For how wide it is, make the hem 1/2" wider.

For example, mine was 1" wide. So, I made my hem 1 1/2" wide. For 1 1/2" wide elastic, you'll want to do 2".

Make the hem, and sew along the bottom of the hem to make a sort of pocket or tube for the elastic to go through.

Now, sew along the length of the skirt to close it, but don't sew through the two openings for the elastic!

Now, get your elastic and two safety pins. On one end of the elastic put one safety pin on it, and then pin it to one of the openings. Take the other end of the elastic and put the safety pin through that end, but don't attach it to anything! Now, take that end and send it through the opening that the other end is attached to. Slowly but surely that sucker will pop out through to the other end.

When it pops out, unpin the other end and pull them both out, each from their own hole, to tighten your skirt further. Then, stick it on your machine and sew them together (or hand sew). This will close the openings and keep the elastic from slithering back into the tube-hem-thing.

Flip that skirt inside out, and boom! You have a skirt and/or slip!