Twirling Skirts- First Edition

The number one criterion for clothing amongst the under-three-foot crowd in this household is far and away

 “How spinny is it?” 

If you are the mother of girls you either totally feel me on this one, or you wish you could get your daughter near a dress. That might be just as well, because spinny dresses are like a drug, and I have two little raving addicts in my house. Please believe the expectations are high on what constitutes a spinny dress. Just because a dress is frilly, full, or even has a petticoat does not mean it is spinny enough, or so I am told. As nearly as I can figure the dress must both be full or more than full and have a petticoat. That combo just doesn't happen in a lot of dresses these days. It was time to dust off the sewing machine. One of my major projects this summer apart from kitchen renovations and going to the chiropractor all the time has been making custom twirling dresses. 

These are their special occasion dresses, and I chose to make them high-low. 

This dress is a pink and white gingham taffeta made from Butterick B5845 pattern which fully satisfies the spinny demands. The pattern has great proportions, and I only thing changed two things: First, how many seams were in the bodice (28!!!). The way it comes is basically both princess line and empire waisted. I know they did it for pattern flexibility, but to me it was awkward and too much work. The quick fix was to tape the upper and lower bodice pieces together eliminating the seam allowance to come up with a classic princess line in the bodice. I also didn’t use 3 layers on the skirt, but tacked the petticoat tulle straight onto the lining. I thought I had white lining fabric, and it turns out that I didn’t have enough. 

The buttercup yellow I did have serendipitously blushes and glows through the gingham in places so that the colors are not just pink, white, and the contrasting yellow underskirt, but a whole range of peaches, oranges, and off-whites in between. See it? I will consider contrasting lining on translucent fabrics more often in the future because the light around it is really special. 

Don't let her seriousness fool you, special occasion or no, dresses have to be playground ready, and I have to say I am thrilled with the functionality of the high-low skirt design for the jungle gym. 

You know that heart flipping moment when you see your girl trample her skirt on the stairs... or a ladder... or a climbing wall... and you think your next stop is the ER? Yeah. None of that. The short front doesn’t get in her way, and the long train satiates the inner princess. 

If you can’t have a silky rainbow-colored mullet dress when you are a toddler, when can you have one? I’m still stumped on that one, so I went for it. The fabric was at Joann’s, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, and I have no regrets. That said, I did discover why no high-low patterns are offered for small toddlers: Their high and their low is something like 6” apart and barely noticeable. 

I solved that by making the difference more extreme and putting matching bloomers under it designed to show. The second problem was converting a pattern designed for a stiff fabric into a silky fabric. Special occasion dresses for little girls are designed for cottons and taffetas, never for charmeuse. Fluid fabrics don’t do voluminous gathers very well, so I worked out the bodice with as few seams as I could, then used a trick for stepping up the volume to get a very full skirt. 

The first tier is twice as wide as the bodice. The second tier is four times the width of the bodice, or twice the first tier. The bottom ruffle is eight times the width of the bodice, and twice the second tier. You can do this on any fabric with varying lengths for the tiers.
 It comes out really cute and eliminates a lot of the fullness at the hip for a cleaner line on adults too! I eliminated the petticoat layer because it didn’t need it. I Frankensteined Butterick 5845's skirt proportions with a variation on Simplicity 2265's bodice A. In all it comes off with a flamenco dancer vibe, and is as spinny as a little girl could ask for.