The Halloween Skirt without a Pattern

It’s well documented that sometimes I have an idea for a project and am not really sure how it’s going to turn out. Usually I don’t take pictures at all when I’m doing such a thing, even if I hope to be able to blog about it when it’s done.

So it is with this skirt.

I am so glad I don’t have photographic evidence of the crazy that happened on the way to making this skirt a reality.

How it All Started

I had some leftover fabric from the Halloween table I made for the front porch, and I thought it would be perfect to make the girl a little skirt. They don’t dress up for Halloween at her school other than in orange and black, so it would be a fun thing for her to wear with her jack o’lantern shirt, I reasoned.

My original plan was to make an A-line skirt mostly in the candy corn fabric, with a ruffle in the pumpkin fabric.

But somehow, even though I was using one of her skirts as a template, I cut it way too narrow and didn’t have enough extra fabric to cut it out again.

So I improvised.

Making It Work

I ended up cutting about half of my original piece off to make it wide enough, then used the second fabric to cut a new waistband.

I sewed those two pieces together, then sewed the side seams. I sewed a bunch of strips of the pumpkin fabric together and gathered them to make the bottom.

Then I sewed elastic into the waistband and hemmed the bottom.

It came out a little uneven in the waistband, but it’s still pretty darn cute, and considering she’ll only wear it a few times, it’s really fine.

Making Your Own

If you want to make a scrappy Halloween skirt of your own, use a skirt that fits well as a template, but better than I did. You’ll probably need a yard or less of fabric, depending on the size you’re making; mine was totally done with scraps. Measure the waist of the skirt and/or your child and a little for seam allowances.

Cut the fabric to the same shape as the skirt you like, or make your own A-line design.

You can either make the top part all from one fabric, or cut out a piece of contrasting fabric for the wasitband, making sure it’s wide enough to fold over to hold the elastic. Sew these pieces together, then sew the side seams.

For the bottom, you’ll want fabric that measures at least twice as long as the skirt is around (or more or less depending on the volume of ruffle you want). I use the cheating method for gathering fabric from Dana Made It (basically use the longest stitch length on your machine and the highest tension). Then sew the ruffle to the skirt, adjusting as necessary for length.

Fold the top of the fabric over and seam all but a couple of inches to put the elastic through. Run the elastic through the casing, sew the ends of the elastic together, being careful not to twist, then sew the rest of the seam closed.

Hem the bottom and sew on the machine.

If you do it right this is a really quick and easy skirt your little one will love.

Are you doing or have you done any sewing for Halloween? I’d love to hear about it!