Spaniel Seersucker Skirt

I saw this fabric with little brown dogs on it at my local fabric store, Five Eighth Seams, and I immediately bought a couple yards knowing it was destined to be a new skirt in my closet. I love how crisp and cool the seersucker feels, and it was easy to make too!

I sewed this skirt up using McCall’s 7606 with a few changes. I shortened the entire skirt so it would be calf length instead of maxi length. Also, I incorporated the ruffle at the top into the waistband, so it wouldn’t flap around so much. I used a button closure on the inside top right and a hook and bar closure at the top left, just before the ruffle begins. At the outside edge of the ruffle, I used a small snap. I guess you could say there is no chance of a wardrobe malfunction in this skirt! These closures are way more secure than the ties like the pattern suggests, and I like the security and the sleek look without the bow. The fabric was a little transparent, so I interlined the skirt with white cotton batiste from my stash, and it is the perfect opacity and weight for the skirt.

Before I gathered the ruffle, I hemmed it using a narrow roll hem foot. This attachment takes some getting used to, and I have butchered the beginning of many, many hems by unknowingly using this attachment incorrectly until I finally watched this video about using my specific Bernina foot. Though, I am assuming since all of the roll hem feet look the same, this video could be useful if you have another brand of sewing machine. The video instructs to straight stitch the area to be hemmed for a few stitches and then use the long thread tails to position the fabric correctly into the foot before starting to hem. Now, I get perfect hems every time!

Instead of cutting out the ruffle the length the pattern suggests and gathering it, I cut longer lengths of fabric, pieced it together in one long strip, and then I used a gathering foot. It is important to have a little extra length of fabric to work when using a gathering foot because it may gather the fabric a little tighter than the way the pattern was designed. Also, you have less control in easing out the fullness if the gathers are too tight. For this skirt, the finished ruffle is about half the length of the original length of fabric. I always like to practice with a scrap piece of the fabric I am working on to make sure the foot is gathering the amount that I want it to. I used a 10 inch long piece of scrap seersucker fabric and made adjustments until my finished ruffle was only 5 inches. Fiddling with the machine settings doesn’t take too long, and I prefer it to pulling basting threads because the gathering foot evenly spaces the gathers for me. After I sewed on the ruffle, I cut off the excess amount of fabric that I had gathered so it was the appropriate length. I also topstitched the bottom of the skirt to hold the seam allowance of the ruffle and skirt bottom in place. I think the topstitching gives the skirt a ready-to-wear look.

I paired this skirt with the Nettie Bodysuit I made by Closet Case Patterns. Modifications to the original bodysuit pattern are discussed in this post.

This project ended up coming together quickly with the help of my roll hem and gathering presser feet. Do you have any favorite presser feet or sewing machine attachments that help you save time? Let me know in the comments below.