Satin skirt with tulle ruffles

I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I made a valentines skirt for Sweet. So here are the pictures and some tips!

I love this shade of red!!

So let's get to the how to..

Skirt:

This is a very simple skirt  made with a rectangle with a hem in the bottom and a casing for elastic near the waist.  There are a lot of tips on the Internet about how to sew with satin/polysatin.

What worked for me:

I used my machine foot and it was a breeze! My earlier attempt (last year) without one was not quite successful. So I strongly recommend installing this foot if you are considering slippery fabric such as satin. I didn't have to use any stabilizer. I used my regular needle on my machine and regular thread.

Ruff... Ruff... Ruffles:

This was the most fun part about making this skirt!! It is also the most time consuming step. But as you can see, the results are worth it.

I used the 6" wide tulle that I got from Hobby Lobby. This made my job so easy. All I had to do is ruffle a looooooong strip.

For creating the ruffles, please DO NOT use your machine foot!! (Trust me!). Switch back to your regular foot for this part.

Creating these beautiful ruffles is very easy.. you don't need a ruffle foot!!! All you have to do is change some settings on your machine.

So here are the settings on my Brother for creating ruffles. Set the tension by turning the dial to be near 8. Set the stitch length to 4.5 (stitch type is default 00).

Voila! start sewing in the middle of the tulle pieces and the machine will do all the work for you!!

Notes:

1) Be sure to note down/take a picture of your original setting so that you can get back to it after ruffle creation.

2) Whenever you change any setting be sure to sew a few stitches on a test swatch (of similar material) to make sure you get the desired results.

The princess kissed the frog and waited.... 

Yes, that is the same Elmo appliqued t-shirt from her 2nd birthday (it still fits)!

I had made the ladybug hairbow when Sweet was an infant :).