Tiered Girl Skirts for #memademay

For the final Auriful Artisan project for the 2019 Artisans, I made skirts for my girls for #memademay. I love making homemade skirts, but I don’t love that the quilting cotton skirts need to be ironed, especially since my girls throw them in the wash after half a day of wear. So, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and sew the skirts with knit instead of woven fabric!

For this project I use Aurifil Forty3, which is a 3 ply 40wt thread. This was my first time using the Forty3 and I really enjoyed it. Since it was designed to be more durable than regular cotton 2 ply thread, it should stand up to the wear and tear of garment sewing (it was designed for garments and long arm quilting).

It was also ideal for gathering! I use the basting method for gathers, and sometimes I break the thread I’m pulling to create the gathers, but I don’t think I could snap this thread easily at all.

I sewed the skirts entirely on my domestic machine. I do own a serger, but rarely use it. So I wanted to give a closeup of the stitch I used, since you cannot see it with the white thread on the white fabric. The stitches coming down from the points do not overlap, so the seam has a little bit of give just like knit fabric does.

I followed the Tiered Summer Skirt Tutorial from We All Sew, but sewed the layers together with the stitch I showed above. I just used a regular stitch for my hem and waistband. I asked for knit sewing tips on my Instagram and so I used the walking foot instead of a regular presser foot, set my machine to knit (which adjusted the presser foot pressure), and was careful not to stretch the fabric while I sewed.

Over all, these skirts turned out to be easy to make and gave such a cute result! I’m hoping for lots of summer wear and am now debating buying all the knits to make all the skirts!

Do you have any favorite knit patterns or tips you’d like to share?