The Gate River Run was a big week of new things for me. First of all, it was the furthest timed run I’d done. It was the first time my timed run included major bridges (where I live it’s flat…very flat) with quite an incline. And it was my first time trying to walk the pain off because I was incredibly sore after. It was also the first week I attempted to use my new sewing machine without my mum.
Let me preface: My mum had bought me the sewing machine roughly two weeks before. We had made pajama pants in an effort to teach me. With a pattern that we purchased and cut out. I have them, and I love them, but one of the legs is definitely longer than the other.
Roll on up to the weekend before the race and my friend-turned-running-buddy Blair suggests that we should make a running skirt. On our own. With this new amazing machine. I told her no about 26 times and then one Sunday when it was cold we decided to skip our run and make the skirts instead. Now when I say this was an experience…this was an experience! Blair had found the instructions on Beauty Still Remains and we literally had to figure out most of it through trial and error. I think if you have any idea how to use (and thread) a sewing machine, you’d be great at this!
I don’t really think I could recreate each step, but I highly encourage you to check out Beauty Still remains to make one of these skirts. I really enjoyed the experience and people kept asking us where we bought them! It’s a really good feeling! Personally, I think the teal one turned out better for two reasons: I was more experienced since it was the second one, and I made one small error that changed the look of the skirt. All in all, a great time though! And I loved my pink skirt, errors and all!
Fabric, materials, and measurements!
Sewing the waistband after 30 minutes of figuring out how to thread the machine!
Measure, Cut, Ruffle, Sew!
Sew, sew, sew, sew!
Look amazing!! So glad we did this 🙂
daisyfrancesca 
I LOVE how you do not have the ruffle seam out and have perfect ruffles! Ahh how did you do that! ?
Honestly, I’d never made anything before so I took some time to eyeball it! I’ll be making the skirt again for another run, too. Thank you for reading!
Your way of doing the ruffles looks a little easier and prettier. I like how the seam isn’t sticking out. Was it easier making your second skirt? How much longer did you make the bottom part of the skirt compared to the top part? Can you post more detailed directions? I really like the way you made your skirt compared to the link provided. Thank you!
Thank you!
It was much easier making the second one – especially since my first skirt was the first time I’d ever used my sewing machine on my own.
The top of the skirt is 5.5 inches long and the bottom is 9 inches.
I did start by sewing together the elastic band. I essentially took the band and put it around my waist to see how I liked the fit and then just cut from there.
I laid the top (5.5 length) piece on the ground in a straight line. I then place the longer piece (9 inch length) on the ground and because you should have two of those, it’ll be double the length of the 5.5 length fabric (you would have sewn the two together to make one very long piece).
I then eyeballed the ruffles to be where I liked them. I used pins to secure them before I sewed it together.
Then I just sewed where I had pinned, but unlike the website I had the shorter fabric overlap the ruffle in the front instead of the back (hopefully that makes sense?)
Then I sewed the entire thing onto the elastic. *Remember to pull at the elastic as you sew. I didn’t know to do that and when I put it on it wouldn’t stretch because I’d sewn it all together.
Hopefully that helped! Let me know if you’d like elaboration on a specific step 🙂
To clarify the directions above, it looks like the ruffles here are actually pleats, so all it would take would be some math to make the pleat folds equal and some good measuring. Ruffles happen when you make the baste stitch all the way across and then gather the fabric until it matches the width of the top fabric. Then you can sew like normal. I do worry about the itch factor though.
That’s correct! They are more like pleats, and simple math would be super easy. I was learning everything at once so I just went with it. The way I did it was very comfortable! As far as ruffles go, I’m not sure… Please let me know if you go that route!
How much total yardage did you need?
I used about a yard; the store had a little more than a yard left of the material so I simply took what they had left. I think I would have been fine with a yard though.