Constructing my Bubble/Balloon Skirt – Toile

I loosely followed the a step by step to create a Women’s bubble skirt tutorial on a website called Easy Peasy Creative Ideas.

As all I needed to create this skirt was two different sized rectangles of fabric and two of each size. I did not need to create a pattern, all I needed was the measurements to create a skirt that fits me.

Once I had worked out the size of fabric I need to create my Bubble/Balloon skirt. I cut my fabric out I needed fabric for the outside and fabric that was slightly smaller than the outside fabric for the lining of the skirt.

So, I cut the outside fabric the width of the roll and 80cm in length.

I then also cut the lining 65cm wide and 70cm in length.

Below is a photo of the two pieces of calico laid on top of each other to show the size difference. I then cut another outside piece of fabric and lining for the back of the skirt.

Next I sewed along the top and bottom edge of both of the pieces of fabric for the front of the skirt with a straight stitch length 5. This will allow me to gather the fabric.

I gathered the top of both pieces fabric to approximately 35cm.

I then began to loosely gathered the bottom of both pieces of fabric bigger than 35cm.

I then pinned the top of both the lining and the outside of the fabric together ensuring that the top is evenly gathered.

I then turned the stitch length to 2 for more of a normal stitch length.

I then sewed along the top of the fabric joining the two separate gathered pieces together.

This is what it looked like once I had sewn it together.

I then turned it in side out so that I you could see the gathering at the bottom. I then started to gather bottom.

This when a slight problem occurred, as what was meant to be the top of the skirt became the bottom and vice a versa. This meant that the bottom of the skirt was only 35cm and the top was wider than 35cm. This did not really cause any issues the only thing I had to do to rectify this, was once I had sewn the skirt together I had to make the waist slightly smaller.

Next time I followed the same process but instead of sewing the top of the skirt first and then turned it inside out I will sew the bottom first and then turn it inside out and then finally sew it at the top. This will avoid the issue I had before.

Once I had gathered both of the pieces of fabric I then made sure all the gathers were even before pinning them together.

Next I sewed the two pieces of fabric together and removed the pins.

This is what the front panel looks like laid out on the table.

I then pinned the front panel to the skirt to see how it looks, I am happy with the length as it is a medium length.

I then repeated the exact same process for the back panel of the skirt.

Once the back panel had been sewn, I then laid the outside of the front and back facing each other.

I then left a gap on one side of the skirt to add the zip in later and then aligned the skirt perfectly with all 4 pieces of fabric pinned together all the way down one side of the skirt.

Next I sewed down that side.

I then followed the same process down the other side of the skirt, I pinned it and sewed it.

Next I turned it the right way round so it looked like this.

I then tried it on and I was very happy with the length but I had to hold it up as the skirt was too big at the waist and also I had not added my invisible zip yet.

Before I took the skirt off I made marks on the skirt of how much I need to get rid off around the waist so that it fits.

I then held the two marks on the fabric together and folded the fabric before pining it ready to sew.

Once I had sewn it I tried it on to see if it fitted and it did.

I then drew and cut my waistband 10cm wide by the measurement of the skirt at the top where the waistband will be attached with an extra 2cm seam allowance around all the edges.

When the waist band has been folded and sewn it will only be 5cm wide.

I then pinned the waistband to the top of the skirt before sewing it.

So once sewn it looked like this.

Next, I changed the sewing machine foot from a normal one to a zipper foot, I then sewed the invisible zip in the skirt and waistband.

I then folded, pinned and sewed the waistband down.

This is what the finished waist band and zip looks like.

This is the front and back of my finished Bubble/Balloon Skirt.

As I had already finished my pattern magic bodice block toile, I decided to pin the front panel on to my mannequin before putting on the skirt to see how they look together.

I love how they look together I just have to envision the final piece with colour and detail.

Finally, whilst the Bubble/Balloon skirt was still on the mannequin I pinned 3 of the large Suffolk puffs onto the skirt which I made previously and wrote about in Sewing Suffolk Puffs.

I think from looking at the Suffolk puffs on the skirt for my final piece I would not want them to be much smaller than these three.

Overall, I am really happy with how this turned out and I did not have any major problems that I could not overcome.

I am really looking forward to creating my final piece.

Bibliography

Easy Peasy Creative Ideas. 2021. Bubble skirt sewing tutorial. [online] Available at: <https://theseamanmom.com/how-to-make-a-bubble-skirt/ > [Accessed 20 March 2021].