pleat week guest! - amy from naptime crafters

Amy from Naptime Crafters is headlining our pleat week guests! You may know Amy by her adorable baby girl clothing tutorials. She has a whole lot of them. My favorites include this polka dot dress tutorial, the sweetheart halter, and the dahlia tee. She also hosts the American Crafter craft competition. After seeing only cute stuff come out of her blog, I knew she would come up with something awesome for pleat week and she did!

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the lollipop skirt

I’m so excited to be a part of pleat week! I was planning on yet another outfit for the little miss and then I decided to take the challenge and make something for me instead. We deserve to sew for ourselves sometimes right:)

This skirt really makes me pretty happy! Happy enough to drag the hubs to this very busy street, so I could use this amazing wall for the photo shoot:) What will the lollipop skirt make you do??? Better make one and find out:)

Here’s what you’ll need:

Fabric: I used a thrifted sheet
Zipper
Sewing supplies

1. For starters let’s cut out the yoke. You need 2 in of your main fabric- I tapered mine in a bit and curved the bottom to give it some more shape. Make sure you account for seam allowances- I used 1/2″ seam allowance so the total width of both of my yokes was 2″ wider than my waist measurement. You’ll also need 2 pieces in a liner fabric- it’s helpful to make these pieces a bit taller than your others.

2. With right sides together {RST} sew your yoke pieces and yoke liners together one one short end. Then with RST sew them together along the upper edge. Press flat.

3. Decide on a length for your skirt. Remember to leave room for hemming. I did 4 inverted box pleats on the front and back and I made the pleats 1″ wide on each side. So…you need to cut each skirt piece to be 8″ wider at the top than the measurement along the bottom of your yoke piece. I decided on a slight A-line shape, so I made the skirt a bit wider at the bottom.

***The skirt piece on the top is showing you the box pleats from the wrong side.

4. Baste across your pleats to hold them in place and then sew part way down one side{I did about 4″} and back up the other side of each pleat. It looks best if you do a little point at the bottom instead of sewing straight across.

5. With RST sew your skirt pieces together on one side and part way up on the other side- leave enough room to get it on and off.

6. With RST sew the bottom edge of the yoke to the top of your skirt.

7. Install your zipper according to the package directions. Fold the yoke liner towards the inside of the skirt, tuck all of your seams inside, fold under the bottom of the yoke, and then topstitch down right along the bottom edge of the yoke. {please ignore my little uh oh on the one side- it’s on the inside right???}