The Amelie dress was designed to fit on 48" / 122 cm wide fabric for sizes 1-8 (US 0-14) or 49" / 124.5 cm wide fabric for sizes 9-16 (US 16-30).
However, there are some really cute fabrics out there that aren't quite so wide and, in all honesty, only the skirt of the Amelie dress poses a problem when it comes to fabric width. There is always the option to simply cut each individual skirt piece with your fabric opened up and laid out as a single layer, but that takes up A LOT of space, fabric, and time, so it's not super ideal.
Instead, I have a quick and easy way for you to make the skirt pattern work for ANY width of fabric, whether that be a 45" width quilting cotton or a 34" wide handwoven piece you treasure!
For this tutorial, we will be looking at transforming the skirt pattern to fit a 44" / 111.8 cm wide fabric. However, the skills you learn in this tutorial can easily be applied to any pattern piece you may find needs a bit of tweaking for your fabric!
SUPPLIES NEEDED:
- Traced Skirt Pattern in your size
- More tracing paper
- Clear Ruler
- Flexible Ruler
- Sharpie or Pen
- Paper Scissors
- Tape
Let's Get Started!
1) The very first thing we need to do is trace out our seam allowance along the edge of the skirt extension piece and the skirt itself that eventually get sewn together to create our full skirt piece.
2) Next, fold your skirt extension seam allowance back. This will allow us to easily place our pieces together to simulate us sewing these items together.
3) Now we can pretend to "sew" the skirt extension piece to the actual skirt piece. Do this by simply lining up the folded edge of the skirt extension to the skirt piece and tape them together along the seam line.
4) Grab your flexible ruler and let's get to measuring! Since we are working with 44" / 111.8 cm wide fabric in this tutorial, I am going to make sure that the width of my skirt is 21" / 53.3 cm wide.
You may be asking why I am making my measurement 2" smaller than the total width of my fabric. I am doing this because I have to add seam allowance back into my pattern pieces, plus most fabrics have roughly 1/2" / 1.3 cm of a selvedge edge to them that I don't want to sew into my garment.
If you are trying to figure out how wide you want to measure your pattern piece to be, just use the following formula:
(Total Fabric Width / 2) - (1/2" seam allowance + 1/2" Selvedge Edge)OR(Total Fabric Width / 2) - (1.3 cm seam allowance + 1.3 cm Selvedge Edge)
You'll want to mark your new seam from the center front/ back edge. Make sure you do multiple measurements along the edge of your skirt so that you can then connect the dots to create your new finished seam line!
5) Using your paper scissors, cut through this newly marked line.
6) We now ave to add our seam allowances back into each of these pattern pieces, so let's grab some scrap tracing paper, our tape, pen, and our clear rulers.
Tape your new pattern piece to your scrap tracing paper along the cut edge.
7) Draw a line 1/2" / 1.3 cm away from your cut line. This will be your new cutting edge!
8) Go ahead and connect your old pattern piece at the top & bottom edge by following those original lines out until they meet your new seam allowance line.
You can now cut out your updated pattern piece!
9) Repeat steps 6-8 for your skirt pattern piece.
10) Once you have your two new pattern pieces completed, we need to make sure both still fit one another. To do this, follow steps 2 & 3, but without using any tape. We just want to make sure that all the new lines match up beautifully.
And Voila! You have successfully made your pattern suitable for your particular width of fabric- yay! You should now be able to cut out your Amelie (or the pattern of your choosing) without wasting a ton of fabric or spending loads of time cutting one little bit at a time!
And if you know that you tend to buy fabrics with a little less width, you can go ahead and transfer your new pattern to a clean sheet of tracing paper OR even put it on card stock . That way, you can use it over and over again without fear of your new pattern falling apart over time!
2 comments
Hi Kristi!
You could measure from either the CF or the side seam! I find it visually easiest to measure from the CF and then mark along the side seam my adjustments, but that is just me!
As for the visual effect of the skirt, nothing should change in either the flare or the number of gathers. You are simply redistributing where that seam is set, but the overall skirt shape should remain the same in the end!
Hello! I’m having a hard time understanding how to measure the new skirt piece from the existing. Do I measure 23" from the CF or do I measure it from the side seam where the extension attaches? In addition, what is the overall visual affect of this adjustment? For example, does it result in fewer gathers around the waist or does it result in a less flared skirt? Thank you so much in advance!