Handmade Poodle Skirt for Sock Hop Sweetie Costume

My Grand Daughter wanted a Poodle Skirt for Decades Day during Spirit week at school, so the race began! I scoured every hand made poodle skirt video I could find and decided to make it without a pattern (which would have cost me $14.95).

At the fabric store I borrowed a pattern to see how much and the best kind of fabric I would need, two yards of pink felt, black felt for poodle, faux leather for the belt, wide black elastic for the waist, belt buckle, cute shirt for under cute black sweater and trim for leash. I am somewhat of a procrastinator so I started buying materials on Sunday, did not like the trim so back to another store on Tuesday, couldn’t find what I needed so on Wednesday morning to the last store and luckily they had everything I needed for the skirt!

Okay so she needs the poodle skirt Wednesday Night because she is wearing it to school Thursday morning.

I followed a video on How To Make A Poodle Skirt without a zipper. Yeah right, fold the material in half and in half again call Daughter-in-law to measure Grand Daughters waist and length take waist measurement add 2 inches and divide by pie? Went to online calculator that could divide by pie (which is 6.28) and ended up with 3.3 inches.

Here’s where it gets tricky. You measure out 3.3 inches from the corner then make an arc, I watched one video where the tied a piece of string to a pencil held the string on the corner and lo and behold, a perfect arc. I did the same thing for the length at 19 inches open it up and it looks like a big doughnut.

I found a template of a poodle on computer, traced it and cut out poodle from black felt look for glue gun I haven’t used in years, found it but only had half a stick of glue in it – just enough to glue poodle on, hand sew leash on, and added decorations to poodle.

Now to put the waistband on, cut 18 and a half inches of black elastic sew together open seam and sew down seam allowance gather skirt waist and sew skirt to waistband.

Okay so this going along smoothly but I also promised her brother a hippie outfit in between working on her skirt on Wednesday.

I frayed a pair of boot-cut jeans, washed them so they would fray out more. Then I slit open the side seam stitch on peace patches to bottom of each leg and added a triangle of peace sign material to make them into bell bottoms and stitched them back together. I found a tie-dyed shirt and vest in the attic and his outfit was all done.

Now for the final touches, on Sisters Poodle skirt ensemble, iron on a pink letter “C” for Caitlyn, make belt and I am finished with everything by 5:30 P.M.

I delivered the outfits before bed and of course she had to try on her skirt and she said “look Grandma it’s a twirl skirt”!

They both loved their outfits. Their parents got them the accessories to finish off the look. Next morning at school Facebook blew up with all the comments and likes. Where did she get the Poodle skirt, who decorated his jeans and on and on. They were a hit!

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