One Tiered Skirt Tutorial

You're going to need fabric, elastic, and thread. The seam allowances are 1/2 an inch. The skirt pictured in this post is for my little sister.

Measuring
For this skirt, there are two pieces: the top piece called the yoke and the bottom piece called the tier. To begin you are going to need to measure the waist of the person this skirt is for. Once I had the waist measurement I added 18 inches to it. In my case the yoke piece was 35 inches wide. I then added 20 inches to the yoke piece's width to make the tier width. The tier for the skirt was 55 inches wide. Make the tier at least 20 inches longer than the yoke.The longer the length, the fuller the skirt is going to be.

The length
For this skirt the yoke is one third the length of the tier. You can vary the two lengths depending upon the look you're going for. You could make the yoke longer and make the tier more like a ruffle. You could make them both the same length. Whatever you prefer. Just be sure both lengths together equal the total length you want, plus seam allowance.
 

1. Start by taking your yoke piece and sew both ends together, right sides together.
(No picture for this step) Do this with the tier as well.

 2. Take your yoke and iron over the top about 2/8 of an inch. Fold over again and iron about 1/2 an inch, depending upon the width of your elastic.
After ironing, pin and stitch all around the fold, leaving a small part unsewn, to form a casing. Now you are going to pull your elastic all the way through this casing. Start at the part you left unsewn and go all the way around. This can be made easier by attaching a safety pin to the end of your elastic. (Check out my scrunchy tutorial to see how to put the elastic in.) Now sew the elastic ends together and sew up the opening in the casing.

3. Now you can hem the tier. To do this, iron down how much you want hemmed, pin, and sew. (I hemmed mine down half an inch.)

4.The next step is to gather the tier. To do this, begin by stitching around the whole edge with a seam allowance of 3/8 of an inch, but do not back stitch at the beginning or the end. Leave a long thread on both ends of the row. Now you are going to pull on these threads. (Pull on the threads that make the fabric gather.)

5. You are going to have to gather just enough to make it the same circumference as the yoke. When you think you have it pretty close, begin pinning the yoke to the tier, right sides together. Keep moving gathers around and, with a little time, it should fit nicely. When you have it evenly pinned, stitch all the way around with the regular 1/2 inch seam allowance.

6. You now have made a skirt! You can cut all stray threads and then you're done. For another variant of this design, I made a skirt for myself awhile back with a 25 inch elastic, 55 inch yoke and 70 inches in the tier. (Click here to see) So, the difficult part is figuring the measurements. It all depends on the fullness you're going for and the style. (You can click here if you would like to see more photos of this finished skirt.)

If you have any questions, just ask!
Have you been doing any sewing projects?