Simple Rainbow Ribbon Skirt Tutorial

Miss 5 loves rainbows. Her first drawing that resembled anything was of a rainbow. Since then, we have had rainbow beetles, rainbow birds, people wearing rainbow clothes and more feature in her drawings.

I saw a skirt somewhere online that had bias binding strips along the bottom to create a rainbow effect, but as I am always on the lookout for the most simple and effective ideas, I thought I would replace the binding with grosgrain ribbons.



To start, I measured my daughter's waist and doubled the measurement. That gives you the width of fabric needed.

I then measured the length from her waist to where I wanted the skirt to end (in her case that was just on her knee). I added around 4 - 5cm and that gave me the length of the fabric needed.

Open out the rectangle and fold over the bottom edge by about a centimetre and iron down. Pin the ribbons along the skirt. The bottom one serves as the hemline and the spacing is dependent on personal preference really and how many colors you choose to use. Sew the ribbons down by sewing along both edges as close to the edge as possible. To finish off at the ends, fold the ends under and sew down.

Fold the rectangle with right sides together and sew down the open side. Then press the top over 2cm and then another 2cm. Sew along the bottom fold as close as you can to form the elastic casing. Leave an opening of about 2 - 3 cm and feed the elastic through. Sew the ends of the elastic together and sew the casing closed.

Oh so cute!