Now what little girl doesn’t dream of being the beautiful bride?
My daughter has been playing wedding for a while now so I thought I would add to that creativity with a dress-up wedding dress. But, I didn’t really want the hassle of a dress because it drives me nuts to have to put it on and take it off for me daughter. This girl changes her dress-up costumes about 64 times a day. I decided to make a dress-up wedding skirt that my daughter can pull off and on all by herself. I may add a top later, but for now, she is thrilled with this poofy and twirly dress-up wedding skirt!
NOTE: I made a skirt that is approximately 18 inches long from waistband to hem. There is a lot of latitude in waist size with the amount of fabrics given, but you will need to adjust fabric amounts if you need a longer skirt.
Materials
1/2 yard white nylon netting
3/4 yard white cotton or cotton blend fabric
4 yards white tulle
3/4 inch elastic
Instructions
Cut the cotton fabric so that you have 1/2 yard and and a 9 inch wide section. Use the nine inch section to make a waistband section for the top of your skirt. The waistband should be about 1 1/2 times the actual waist measurement and 4 or 5 inches wide. The casing should be made for 3/4 inch elastic.
You can use the detailed instructions HERE if you need specifics.
Sew the 1/2 yard white cotton fabric section together along the selvedge edges with right sides together (RST) to make the lining section. Press the seam flat.
You should also hem the lining section, but I wasn’t sure how long the tulle section would be so I didn’t do it here and waited until the end. I wanted my skirt to be tea length so my daughter didn’t rip the bottom edges tromping around our house in it. The tulle section turned out longer and I liked the way it was longer than the lining and changed the whole look so I just left it longer and hemmed the lining at the end. This would be the easiest place to hem, though.
Gather the top with a gathering stitch using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. One row of stitching is fine for this project.
Lay the waistband section and the skirt section together and adjust the gathers on the skirt section so the size is similar to the size of the waistband section.
Gather the nylon net section along one long edge. When gathered, it should be about the same size as the waistband section as well. Do not worry about sewing the short edges together. It won’t fray and really isn’t necessary for this project.
Fold the tulle in half lengthwise and then in half again lengthwise. You will have a piece that is roughly 18 inches wide by 4 yards long. I chose to leave mine like that, but you can cut through the folds so the tulle isn’t folded. Tulle is crazy to work with so I mess with it as little as possible.
Sew a gathering stitch on the tulle alongthe edge of the 4 yards length. It will be gathered really tightly—this is what you want. It is easy to underestimate how much tulle you need so be sure you don’t skimp on this. If I was making this again, I would probably go for another set on top of this so it was 8 layers thick and 4 yards long. You can experiment with it each time you make a skirt until it is just what you would like.
Now you will join each of the gathered sections together. Lay them the same way they will actually look when they skirt is finished. The lining section (cotton fabric) will be on the bottom with the right side out. Lay the gathered net along the top edge and sew in place using a 1/4 inch seam. When you get back around to the beginning, just slightly overlap the net to hide the raw edges.
Repeat with the tulle. It will be really thick and crazy, but sew slowly and make sure the edges line up.
Sew another gathering stitch along the skirt section through all thicknesses (which are made of the cotton lining, the netting and the tulle) so you can adjust the gathers to fit the waistband if necessary.
Turn the waistband section inside out and place over the skirt section. Right sides should be together with the raw edges at the top. Pin carefully all of the way around matching the edges and the seam. Sew in place.
Turn the waistband section up. Normally, you would press the seam carefully, but I have found that I burn the tulle when I do this, so I just skip this—it is a dress-up skirt after all! The poofy seam also helps poof the skirt just a little bit more. You can see in this picture that I could have sewn the seam a little wider (a 1/2 inch seam instead of a 1/4 inch seam) to hide the gathering stitch I used, except it is so thick that it is really difficult to do. Again, this is a dress-up and I didn’t worry about it. I would never do this with a regular skirt, but it is fine for this.
Insert elastic into casing and sew ends together.
Sew casing closed without catching the elastic.
The skirt is done! Woo-hoo! I added a veil (go HERE for the link to the veil tutorial) and a few artificial flowers tied with a ribbon. My daughter quickly added her favorite shoes and necklace and the party was on! (Obviously we started with photos–hahaha!)
She definitely made a beautiful bride!
{I sure am glad I have lots of years before the real thing, though!}
If you don’t want a wedding dress-up, save this in your file for Halloween. This is a great way to make a poofy skirt for those princess costumes that are inevitable at least once! Just change the color of the fabrics and you have an easy start for a princess costume!
Cute! This reminds me of something a friend of mine made. She had a little boy, and he liked watching big time wrestling. So she took an old pair of polyester pants and cut them up to make him a wrestling singlet. It was the cutest thing ever!!
this made my day :) what a lucky little girl you have! When we were little, my sisters and i woud use white pillowcases and put them on our heads as veils. heehee! When/If i have a girl I’ll be making her that darling skirt and veil for sure!! So so sweet…thanks for the tutorial :)
So cute!! It would be cute to make it a dress too. Cutting a T-shirt off under the chest and adding the skirt to the shirt!!
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any little girl would love this dress-up wedding dress/skirt! You are a wonderful mommy
This is adorable! I am so going to make this! I’m wondering what purpose the nylon netting serves? In other words, can I get away with just using the tulle? Thanks for the great tute!