How to Sew a Tiered Skirt with Jillayne of Hazelnut Made

June 23, 2022 1 Comment

Hello everyone!  I recently got to sew with double gauze for my first time!  RCF has several colors of double gauze but my two favorites are the teal and dusty mint.  I went with the dusty mint and am pleased with how opaque the fabric is even though it is very lightweight and a light color.  I decided to recreate one of the many tiered midi skirts I see all over the internet for a cool and casual summer skirt.  Today I’ll share very loose directions for how I sewed up my skirt.

Tiered skirts are essentially increasingly larger rectangles gathered and sewn together.  I’ve seen all sorts of variations but my skirt has three tiers of similar lengths.  If you decide to sew your own skirt, you can play with the lengths and number of tiers to change the look of the skirt.  A good starting point for your first tier though is to have it hit around the bottom of your bum or longer and be at least a little wider than your hip width.  My first tier is plenty wider than my hips but my waistband is just wide enough to slide over my hips easily.  Here are the approximate dimensions of my tiers.

(I say approximate because I wasn’t too worried about being precise or exact.  Double gauze has a small amount of ‘give’ because of the loose weave and the bubbly/crinkly texture.  It’s not really stretchy, but there is a slight amount of ease due to the weave of the fabric.)

Waistband: 38”x5”

Tier 1: 52” x 11”

Tier 2: 80” x 10.5”

Tier 3: 120” x 10.5

You will probably need to sew together smaller rectangles to make the entire widths of Tiers 2 and 3. I was able to get the entire 52” width for the first Tier out of the width of the double gauze fabric.  For Tier 2 I cut two rectangles 40” x 10.5” and sewed them together to end up with close to 80” of width.  And Tier 3 I pieced even more until I ended up with close to 120” of width.

I decided to do a large waistband because the only elastic options in my house when I was making the skirt were 2” or 1/4”.  You can adjust the waistband to be shorter for a narrower elastic and you can make the waistband wider or just lengthen Tier 1 and fold over the top of the first tier to make a casing for the waistband.

Also, double gauze will fray so please remember to finish your seams in your preferred method.  For my skirt I sewed the seam on my regular machine, then serged the raw edges to finish them.

Now for the loose directions.  :)

Sew the rectangles for each tier and waistband, short ends together, into loops.  You should end up with 4 loops of different sizes.

Take Tier 2 and gather one long edge of the loop so it is the same width as Tier 1.  Then sew the gathered edge of Tier 2 to a long edge of Tier 1, right sides together. 

Take Tier 3 and gather one long edge of the loop so it is the same width as the non-gathered edge of Tier 2.  Then sew the gathered edge of Tier 3 to the non gathered edge of Tier 2.

Take the waistband loop and fold it in half like a hotdog.  Sew it to the top edge of Tier 1, leaving an opening to pull the elastic through.  Insert the elastic, check to make sure it is comfortable (usually an inch or two smaller than your waist measurement) then sew the ends of the elastic together and finish sewing the waistband to the top of Tier 1. 

The last thing to do is hem the edge of the skirt!  I serged the edge, folded it under and sewed a narrow hem.

Hope you enjoy sewing with double gauze this summer!

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