Box Pleat Crib Skirt {Tutorial}

A box pleat crib skirt is simple to make and gives a tailored look to the nursery.  I especially like this style for boys, as opposed to a ruffled crib skirt.  If you only need a crib skirt on one side, then you only need one yard of fabric.  Otherwise, you can also make a crib skirt panel for each side of the crib with this method.

Now that holiday decorating is over, I am back to tackling the nursery project list.  In my son’s nursery, since the crib is up against the wall, I only needed a one-sided crib skirt.  I cheated a bit by making one side panel about 6″ taller than I needed and using the extra material at the top to tape the crib skirt in place.  Yes, you read that right…my crib skirt is taped to the crib deck under the mattress.  If I did not tell you, you would never have known.  This is the easiest way to make a one-sided crib skirt.  It is also the easiest way to adjust the length of your crib skirt when you move the crib deck lower as your child grows.  You simply reposition the tape.  If you want to get fancy, you could use stick on velcro instead of tape :)

To create a single box pleat side panel, cut a piece of fabric 18″ longer than the length of the crib deck and 8″ taller then the desired finished height with the crib deck in the highest position.  The extra 18″ length allows 16″ for the box pleat and 2″ for the hem on each side.  The extra 8″ height allows for 6″ to wrap onto the crib deck and 2″ for the top and bottom hem.  Our height was measured from the crib deck in the highest position to the top of the shelf below.  You could also go from the crib deck to the floor, if your crib does not have a shelf.  I only had one yard of this fabric, which I designed on Spoonflower, and it was not wide enough.  I split the yard in half lengthwise and then joined the two short sides together to create one long strip.  The seam served as my centerline in the diagram below and ultimately was concealed by the box pleat.

Hem all sides of the panel by folding the fabric over 1/2″ and then 1/2″ again and stitching.  With the hemmed rectangle, follow the diagram below to create the easy box pleat in the center.

When the crib deck is in the highest position, there will be an extra six inches of fabric to wrap and tape onto the crib deck.  When the crib deck is lowered, the tape can be repositioned to keep the bottom of the crib skirt at the desired length.  As the crib deck gets lower, you will need to pull more fabric up onto the crib deck resulting in a “shorter” crib skirt.

Sharing this project here:
Someday Crafts
Blue Cricket Design
Shabby Nest