I surprised myself by finding that even with 3.25mm needles the guage is still approx 22st /10cm. The bear measures 10 cm across the middle of the chest and 10cm over the shoulder strap so I cast on 44 stitches divided in 4 (like the top of Tikki’s Milo vest). I shaped the top as I would for Milo.. somehow managing to be 16 stitches front and back so I added another 6 stitches each side for under the arms to get it back up to 44stitches around the body.

Skirt was made
k1, kfab in the first round the knit round then, kfab each stitch.
A few rounds later I added again on each 6th stitch.
For a bit of lacy interest I added some staggered holes lower in the skirt.
I did a bind off where I added a stitch per stitch, hoping it would frill… it was possibly a bit much, but I’ll chalk it up to experience.