The Crib Skirt That Almost Wasn't- Crib Skirt Tutorial

I have been looking into decor and theme for the nursery for my baby girl since of course I found out what I was having. I love living in the south and I decided on a Colonial South/French Country. Here are a couple pictures I used as inspiration: Project Nursery and Design Dazzle.

The color scheme that I wanted was a dove grey and a deep purple. I didn't find the exact fabric that I wanted when my mom and I looked at the store and semi-settled for a still beautiful purple fabric (DISAPPOINTMENT #1). I got all the fabric they had and we worked on it from scratch. Here are the steps we took (in italics I will explain what really happened):

1. Measure the long and two short sides of the crib (We really did four panels. Why? The other panel would have never been seen and we got rid of it later and used it as the other half of the front. In the end it was four times the length in the front and very gathered)
2. We doubled the length and used the surger to surge all four edge of each of the panels. (This actually wasn't bad)
3. We pressed a one inch edge at the top and a two inch panel at the bottom of each panel and sewed it. (Again no problems)
4. Gather. We chose to thread a yarn the length of the actual edges of the crib and gathered. (Here is the step where we realized we made one too many panels)
5. We cut four inch strips the length of each of the panels and pressed them in half
6. We sewed the strips to the panels to hold them there. Surge them together with a cutting edge. (After breaking FIVE yes FIVE needles we resorted to just resewing them to reinforce them)
7. We sewed ribbons to the panels around every 10 inches. (Again I was breaking needles-very disappointing day) You can readjust the crib skirt as the crib is lowered. 
8. We tied them to crib and yay! (There's a drawer under our crib and the sides of the drawer block the crib skirt from reaching the ground. I think I almost started crying about right now. I pinned them up with safety pins and declared it DONE)

Here's a picture of the final result. Good luck (you'll need it!)!!