Frooty Skirt - Applique Skirt Sewing Tutorial

While flipping through the pages of Mini Boden, Munchkin fell in love with this appliqued skirt, so we decided to make something similar. I had also been meaning to revisit some of my own tutorials for a while now. What I wanted was to make something from my tutorial and then add some icing on it and see what happens. This skirt fit the bill perfectly. I love how it came together. Do you want to make one for your munchkin?


Supplies:

• 1 Tshirt/Tanktop for the skirt.
• Fabric scraps in red, pink and green colors
• Fray Check
• Heat and bond or wonder under interfacing ( I used wonder under)
• Ric-rac - 1 yard

Construction:

The skirt is based on my 10 min skirt tutorial from sew easy part 1.

Instead of repeating the same instructions again, I'll just show you the pics and move on to the fun part - embellishing.

1.

2.

 3.

 We suspend the skirt-making for a bit to have fun with appliques. We will come back to wordless pics once the embellishments are in place.

4.

Cut a piece of wonder-under slightly smaller than your applique fabric. Here is the insert that came with mine...just follow the instructions given on your and you will do just fine. Promise.

 5.

Turn off the steam button on your iron. Empty the water as well ( just to be sure). Now iron the Wonder Under on the wrong side of the applique fabric. For appliques its best to place the iron and lift up and then move to the next area instead of sliding it.
Learn from my mistake - cut your fabric piece bigger than the wonder under piece. That way you won't fuse it to your ironing board accidentally.

6.

Draw any image you would like to applique on the wrong side of the fused fabric. Do keep in mind that it will be a mirror image on the reverse side. So determine your left and right accordingly. The way I handle this is trace the applique on a paper and then reverse it. Now use this reverse side to trace on the fused fabric. That way the applique will be in the correct direction on the right side of the applique. ( Did it all make any sense? )
Another thing to keep in mind while choosing applique motif is that we will eventually sew along the edges of applique, so you want a motif that you're comfortable sewing around. Don't go for complicated, tiny, curly patterns which will be a pain to sew around. Simple and big ought to do the trick here. Look around the ready to wear clothing and clipart galleries for inspiration. Simple big flowers, fishes, birds, shapes are found very commonly and look great. think about big letters in simple fonts. There are plenty of appliques that can refresh your clothing without wreaking havoc on your eyes and fingers. Of course, if you're a sewing machine ballerina, more power to you! Go for the curliest, whirliest, damask(iest) pattern to applique. We will all look at you in awe and astonishment forever.


7.

Cut the applique out. Peel off the paper backing.

8.

Place the applique at the appropriate place on the main fabric. In this skirt we will be using the original hemline for elastic casing, so the raw side is our hemline now. I placed the appliques about 1.5 inches above the hemline.
Iron to fuse the applique in place. Again place and lift the iron to cover the applique, instead of sliding. Make sure you go over the corners and take your time with ironing.

9.

 Repeat the process with as many appliques as you want.

10.
Now lets go back to finishing the skirt.

11.  According to wonder under instructions, its fine to leave the appliques like this and they won't fray or come out, but I usually try to be extra cautious.

So I first applied fray check all around the appliques and let dry overnight. Despite the manufacturer's claims, Fray check did change the color of the areas it was applied on. It was minor and I don't really mind, but if it bothers you make sure you check it on a small scrap before applying to the garment.


11.

 Then I sew a seam over them along their boundaries. The trick is to keep the stitch length minimum, machine speed minimum and stop often to turn. Nice and easy does it.

12.

Despite warning you about small and too complicated pieces in appliques, I still have some fairly small pieces myself. Like the top of these raspberries. There was no way I could sew all around these tiny leaves. So I just took a shortcut and sew some stitches in straight line along the center. Yep! It's ok in my book.

13.

Even though the skirt pattern is made so that we could avoid hemming, I just couldn't resist sewing in a little ric-rac at the hem.

Who doesn't like a little ric-rac on their clothes, right?

So there it is, making an easy-peasy frooty skirt. Perfect for summer!