A Saturday Sewing Project

Yesterday was cold and dreary and I spent the afternoon happily holed up in my sewing corner. I tackled a simple skirt project that had been on hold for months. It was pretty satisfying to make the whole thing from scratch. I drafted a simple gathered skirt pattern--basically a waistband and a front/back panel--and then stitched it all together. I thought about doing a quick tutorial post, but I kept forgetting to take photos along the way. Oops! I did document some of the process, though this is by no means complete. 

Making the waistband was easy: I took my waist measurement and added a 1 1/4"extension for a button tab. I added a 1/2" seam allowance around the whole thing. For the skirt, I multiplied the waist measurement by 1.5. I didn't want the skirt to be too bulky because I used a heavier wool fabric. This resulted in a slight gather at the waist (and a wide enough hem for me to walk around easily). To make the front and back skirt panels, I just divided that number in half for the width, determined the length I wanted, and drew a rectangle. Easy! (I did actually make some mistakes while cutting--like cutting out the waistband on the wrong grain--but it all worked out in the end). 

I cheated a little bit at the end and stitched through all the layers when topstitching the waistband. This makes it look a little sloppier on the inside, but I didn't feel like doing a lot of hand stitching... All in all I think this took me a few hours, which is great! I'm getting faster at starting and finishing projects, which encourages me to do more. Stay tuned for pictures of the finished skirt!