Twirly Double Skirt Sewing Tutorial

These ‘Twirly Skirts’ are an absolute FAVORITE I’ve made with many girls now here at my Sunroom Sewing Studio.  They start to teach the girls how to handle knit fabric.  Learning to sew on knits is all-important, as they WEAR almost exclusively knits and just don’t seem happy in cotton woven clothing.  The 2″ wide soft elastic can be found in many colors at JoAnn’s.

I first posted this in December of 2016 – but now almost 2 years later, I’m adding some additional hints and how-to’s, and encouraging you to use these directions for both teaching young girls in your life to sew, AND to make as simple gifts.  For a gift, all you really need to know are these 2 measurements:

1.  WAIST measurement – meaning measurement WHERE they consider their waist to be (which you and I both know is well-below their waist!)

2.  LENGTH – shortest length that they (and mom) will be comfortable with – down from that waist level.

Below are photos of my first skirts made for my niece, Alyssa and her doll, MaryEllen back for Christmas, 2016.

I had the waist measurement and longest desired length for Alyssa, and googled for the same measurements on an American Girl Doll.

Alyssa’s skirt turned out to be a bit short – so with the ‘cut edge hemline finish’, I recommend cutting LONGER rather than shorter.  

Mary Ellen’s skirt turned out to be a Maxi Skirt.  My sis says it could be 1.5-2″ shorter.