Little P started ballet lessons recently and I think I love
it as much as she does, possibly more. The mums sit on chairs at the front – as
I remember my mum doing when I did ballet as a child – and we grin like
Cheshire cats (well I do) for a solid half hour as the lovely Miss Leanne puts
them through their paces.
I paid up happily for most of the uniform; pink leotard,
matching socks and ballet shoes but I balked slightly at the price of the
chiffon skirt. I think I had just paid out a series of cheques for swimming,
rugby, art club etc and that additional £8.99 just felt like too much for a flimsy
handkerchief-sized piece of material. But I coughed up and she did look
gorgeous. In fact she loved the skirt so much she started wearing it everywhere
and inevitably it got lost and could not be found.
I was blowed if I was going to buy another but after a
skirtless couple of weeks of failing to find a cheaper one anywhere I decided I would
make one. How hard could it be? Essentially it is a circle skirt with an
elasticated waistband. The fabric, thread and pink elastic cost less than £3.
I
was starting to feel pretty smug but I hadn’t factored in the hideousness of
sewing with chiffon. That stuff is a nightmare! I had to quickly shelve ideas
of a proper hem or my raw edges being neatly tucked away inside a waistband.
Instead I zigzag stitched along the top and bottom of the skirt and left it at
that. I think the end result looks pretty okay.
If you would like to make a pretty chiffon ballet skirt, here’s how I did it. First of all you need to drag a bit of basic maths from your
memory. Don’t worry nothing too tricky. You are going to be drawing two
circles. The smaller circle is the waist and has to be roomy enough to pull up
over her bottom so measure round her tummy and her hips and go with the larger
measurement. Your next measurement is for the length of the skirt. Measure from
her waist down to her knees or mid thigh or where ever you need the skirt to
end. Your finished skirt will look something like this.
First you are going to cut out a template in paper. Get a
great big piece of paper – newspaper, baking paper, wrapping paper. Tape
several bits together if you need to. You are going to be drawing just one
quarter of your skirt. Using your tape measure
or a ruler you are going to draw in the waistline by making a series of dots
the radius distance (3.18 inches for Little P) from the corner. Easier to see
than explain!
Once you have the waistline drawn in, you are going to draw
in the rest of the skirt using the same method. Add your radius (3.18) to your
length now measuring again from the same bottom corner dot in the rest of your
skirt. Now cut along your dotted lines. The finished template should look like
this.
Okay. Fold your fabric in half and half again and place your
template on top. Cut it out. And voila you have a circle skirt!
You’re not finished yet. Thread up that machine and zigzag
stitch around the waist and the hem. My stitches ended up being quite tight and
puckered up the material which normally would have been a disaster but on the
chiffon seemed to look okay and gave a bit of weigh to the hem.
I found sewing a waistband with chiffon very very fiddly but this way worked well for me. First check your girl's tummy measurement then cut a length of elastic 1 inch longer. Use that extra one inch to overlap the elastic and sew together. Now for the tricky bit, sewing the elastic belt into the waistband. I found pinning the fabric first just made the job harder. For me folding the fabric over the
elastic and sewing very very slowly and carefully round adjusting all the time
to minimise the inevitable puckers and twists.
Be careful not to sew your elastic
to your skirt as you go! Sew all the way around and hey presto you have a beautiful ballet skirt!
Your little ballerina is all ready to jete, pirouette and arabesque her way off to class.
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