Ruffled Waterfall Crib Skirt

I was planning on doing a tutorial on how to make this lovely crib skirt, but I ended up going into labor just after I started making it.  I wanted to be really sure it was true labor before I went to the hospital, so I kept working away on this project, pausing every 10 minutes, 7 minutes, 5 minutes to grab the table, white-knuckled and try not to scream my head off.  So sufficient to say, I did not take any pictures of the process.  But I'll try to walk you through the construction nonetheless.

So basically a crib skirt is made up of a deck and three panels (I didn't make one for the 4th side since it would be up against a wall and you wouldn't see it anyway).  The deck is just a measurement of the crib mattress size, which is a standard 28" x 52".  The side panels are the length of the side and then the measurement of where you want the skirt to hit the floor.

With this crib skirt, I left it hanging a good 6 inches or so off of the floor.  That way when the crib mattress is lowered when Penelope gets older, it will just brush the floor as opposed to puddling in a crinkled mess.

I ended up using exactly one yard of each fabric for the ruffles.  I cut the bottom two colors into 6 inch tall strips and the top color into 5 inch tall strips (this makes all of the ruffles appear the same size since there is about one inch of overlap on the bottom two ruffles). 

To get a full ruffle-y effect I cut my strips 2 1/2 times as long as each panel.  So for the short sides, my strips were 70" and the long front panel strips were 130".  Hem the two short ends and one of the long sides.  Then I simply ruffled the strips by sewing a long basting stitch along the unhemmed side and gathering the fabric until it was the length of the panel, pinned it down like crazy, and sewed it to the panel.

 

For the topmost strips, I sewed them to the panels - wrong sides facing - so that the raw edges would not be exposed, but for the middle and bottom strips, I simply laid them so they were laying right side up because the raw edges would be covered by the ruffle from above.  I didn't even bother to remove my gathering stitches since they won't be seen anyways.

Then I sewed the panels to the deck.

Ta-da!

Now since you've tackled the crib skirt, you can go on to make one of those fancy shower curtains from Anthropologie.  But probably not for awhile.  You'll be super sick of ruffling.