Puffball skirt tutorial

For my finnish readers: Tämän tutoriaalin tein englanniksi, koska se liittyy Spoonflowerin kilpailuun, jossa piti suunnitella yhteen jaardiin mahtuva hamekaava/kangas. Älkää ihmetelkö, blogi pysyy kyllä suomenkielisenä todennäköisesti tästä eteenkinpäin, skippailkaa vain tämä ;) Laitan huomenna bloggauksen yleisesti Spoonflowerista ja kankaista, joita tilasin tämän lisäksi (eli yksi trikoo ja koepaloja). Ollaan tässä mökkeilty, joten en ole päässyt niitä kuvailemaan...

Here comes the tutorial for the puffball skirt that I designed for a contest in Spoonflower. The skirt fabric can be seen here. First you should wash the fabric to prevent any shrinking.
Here's how the fabric looks like (I couldn't wash it before sewing the skirt together due to our bathroom renovation and hurry, but I steam ironed it and hope it won't shrink too much when I will wash it):

 

Iron one-sided interfacing to all the flower pieces.

 

Cut all the pieces from the fabric from the edges. All pieces include 1 cm seam allowance except for the petals that only have 0.5 cm seam allowance. Let's make the pockets first.

 

Sew the petals right sides in with 0.5 cm seam allowance.

 

And turn them around.

 

Put the center pieces right sides in and sew a bit more than half around the edges as shown in the next picture and cut out the excess seam allowance.

 

Turn them around and fold the other half so that you get a rounded shape. Please do use iron, I didn't have one since I was in a hurry to make this skirt in our summer cottage!

 

Tuck 2 of the petals inside the center piece and pin them well. (again, use more pins than I did...)

 Sew the opening closed near the edges. Now it should look like a mouse :)

 

Pin the flower and 3 more petals to the hem piece, on top of the yellow circles.

 

Sew the flowers to the hem piece starting from the place shown on the next picture.

Make the second flower same way. '

Now we move on to assembling the skirt. Start by adding 2 shirring lines to both upper and lower edges of the hem piece. Use quite long stitch length. You can use the dotted lines as a guide.

Pull from the lower threads untill your hem piece fits the lining pieces edges. Make the shirring even for both pieces. 

 

Pin and sew the hem of the skirt piece to the lining piece between the shirring lines.

 

 Remove the shirring threads by pulling them. Sew the back seam.

 

  

 Fold the top of the lining piece about 5 cm from the top + fold 1 cm seam allowance on it. Place the waistband part on top of the upper part of the hem and pin it so that the shirring line is just next to the waistband pieces edge. Remember to leave an opening for the elastic.

 

 Sew the waistband near the edge and remove the shirring threads.

 

 Add the elastic to the waistband according to your child's measurements and sew the opening closed.

And you are done. Ready skirt should look something like this:

 This is my first ever tutorial on anything so feel free to ask or comment if something is not clear or well explained.