Sewing through the Story: Simple Skirt

Grace says: Made to measure couture for you and your friends! This light summer skirt is a sweet and simple way of using pretty patterned fabric, and it’s perfect paired with a plain t-shirt and sandals. Just check your fabric isn’t see through before you wear it out of the house…

Katy says: I made this sweet Russian Doll skirt for my six year old daughter. Despite a wide choice of fabric, she insisted on this one, which I didn’t have quite enough of, so I used fabric 1 1/2 times the waist measurement instead of 2 times. This gives the skirt a little less flounce, but since the fabric was quite thick that worked out okay. I tried to get her to pose for a photo in it, but apparently she was “far too busy, Mummy,” doing something with snails in the garden. I didn’t ask.

Simple Skirt

Supplies:

Fabric

2cm wide elastic

What to do:

Measure your waist and the length from your waist to your knee

Measure out your ironed fabric so you have a rectangle twice as long as your waist measurement, and as wide as your waist to knee measurement plus 7cm

Sew a zig zag stitch all around the edges of your fabric to prevent fraying

Lay your fabric out landscape and hem the bottom of your fabric

Fold in half, right sides together, and sew a 1cm seam along the short side, to give you a tube of fabric with the hem at the bottom

Measure your elastic and cut a piece the length of your waist measurement plus 3cm

With your skirt still inside out, fold the top over by 3cm, to give you a fold just wider than your elastic

Iron in place, pin, and sew around the bottom of the fold, removing the pins as you go. Leave a 5cm gap at the side seam, to give you a fabric channel for your elastic