Charming Tiered Twirl

Here it is! I finished Lu's charm pack twirly skirt, in beautiful fall colors, the night before last...but it was too dark for pictures! Today was a beautiful day, but Lu is at her grandma's...so it's just hanging out in the back yard for pics! (Which is a shame, because this baby will TWIRL!)



I used 2 charm packs for this skirt, plus about 1/2 & 1/4 yard of 2 coordinating prints for the yoke and ruffles. The charm packs were "Sonnet Collection", an assortment beautiful fall color prints, by April Cornell for Moda.

Construction was pretty simple, just time consuming. I measured Lu's hips, added about 6" ease, and that became my length measurement for the first tier (and the yoke.) I divded that measurement by 4 for the number of charm squares to use. (Charm squares are 5" square, but I assumed 3/8" seam allowances, so rounded down to 4".)

For each additional tier, I multipled by 1.5. So for Lu's skirt, she measured 10 squares for the first tier, 15 for the 2nd, and so on. (I actually added an additional square to each tier just for extra grow room, so Lu had 11, 16, 22, and 30 squares in each tier.) It's not an exact science, I rounded up and down for the 2nd, 3rd & 4th tiers based on what prints I had, how much gathering I felt like, etc.

I ripped strips of 2" & 3" widths for the ruffles. I roll hemmed in robin's egg blue, for a nice contrast...and gathered using my gathering foot. All topstitching was also done in robin's egg blue.


I have this gathering foot business down, let me tell you! I can pretty much eyeball the correct tension & stitch length for quilting cottons (to gather at a 1.5" ratio) on my Bernina. I almost never gather by hand anymore! There are ruffles between the 2nd & 3rd, 3rd & 4th, and along the bottom. The bottom ruffle was 6 fabric widths!!! I did trim off a bit of excess, but NOT much. I used both contrast fabrics for the bottom ruffle (alternating each.)


The pics aren't my best. I've been in a bit of a fog all day. I didn't sleep well last night. And frankly, my mind is elsewhere. Have you ever had a shock or a surprise that just throws you for a loop? Ya. I had one of those yesterday...but no worries. It wasn't a bad surprise (it wasn't exactly good either), just a very unexpected surprise. My mind isn't quite ready to accept it, so it's been in reject mode ever since.

Unfortunately that also means I've been surrounded by fluffy brain clouds all day.

But it was very therapeutic to stand outside in the setting sun , on a beautiful fall afternoon and photograph a simple handmade skirt on the clothesline. I'm glad I have this hobby in my life, its saved my sanity on more than one occasion. And Im really glad you're all here to share it with too. Here's one more peek...