I was able to find some costumes for my boys at garage sales that were cheaper than making them, so I only had one costume to make this year, and luckily it was an easy one! My daughter wanted to go as a 50's Poodle Skirt Girl (is there an actual name for this?).
First, gather your materials:
- 2 yards of felt (my daughter is almost 10 years old)
- 1 yard of black elastic for the waist
- 1 yard of black rope sequins for the poodle's leash
- black poodle applique (or find a picture online, trace, and cut one out of black felt!)
I started with the circle skirt using this handy sizing chart after I measured my daughter's waist. After you know the radius of the circle , you make your own pattern by taping pieces of blank paper together and using a measuring tape. First measure the radius length starting from the corner of a piece of paper. Mine was 3 and 3/4 inches. Then, starting from that same point, I moved the tape measure in an arc and made dots until I reached each edge of the paper. All I had to do was connect the dots and TA-DA, you have your quarter circle that will be the waist of your skirt. (Double check your work: holding one end of your tape measure in the corner, you should be able to move the other end along the line you drew and the tape measure should read the same number...i.e. the number of the radius according to the chart I linked you to above).
Now you need to work on the rest of your skirt. You should've measured how long you want the skirt to be. For my daughter, it needed to be 24 inches long (from her waist to where I wanted the skirt to hit on her legs). You measure the length starting on the edge of the quarter circle you just drew. Now move one end of your tape along the outside edge of that quarter circle. As you move it and measure out to your desired length, make dots until you reach the other edge of the paper. Connect your dots and you've got yourself a pattern!
cut out your finished pattern
Fold your fabric in half, and then in half again...so it's in quarters. Find the corner fold and pin your pattern into place. This where you might have a mild heart attack thinking you're going to ruin the fabric and it's not going to turn out. But it will! If you are like me, and need another tutorial to reference just to make absolutely sure you're not going to mess things up, I suggest this one.
Unfold your fabric and you're 90% finished!
Use the elastic to measure your daughter's waist. You want the elastic to stretch around her waist (but no too tight). After several tries, I found the right fit, cut off the extra elastic length I didn't need, and then sewed the two ends together to make a loop.
Next, pin your elastic to the waist of your skirt (make sure you figure out which side of the fabric should be facing out and that you're elastic is also facing the correct way). Once your elastic in pinned in place, you'll use your sewing machine to sew the elastic to the skirt. I pinned it so the pink felt of the waist of the skirt came about halfway up the black elastic, if that helps you. As you sew, use your hands to stretch that elastic out. That's what makes the elastic effective and your skirt will have these cute pleats in it!
Now it's time to add some details! If you know me, you know that if I can use my glue gun instead of sew, I will! When my daughter was trying on the skirt, I pinned in place where I wanted the poodle decal to go. I also pinned in place where I wanted the poodle's leash to come down from the top of the skirt. I hot glued the poodle into place and then very carefully, only gluing a small section at a time, I arranged the sequin rope the way I wanted it. This sequin rope was stretchy which was nice because I could manipulate it the way I wanted to. 1 yard was the perfect length for this skirt! I didn't cut any extra off!
And you're done! My daughter will wear this with items she already owns. I was able to use coupons when buying my supplies for this skirt at Jo-Anne's, so really, this was a very inexpensive costume!
