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This is a very simple straight skirt,
for those who are not necessarily over-confident in their sewing skills.
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a stretchy fabric (there are some great stretch velvets *, which look
truly sumptuous), with a slight zig-zag to your stitching to keep
some "give" in your seams.
Cut a rectangle that's 3cms longer
than the length of the skirt you want and about 3cms wider than your
hip measurement.
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| Fold the fabric in half lengthways
(right sides together), so that it is still as long as your legs,
but now only half as wide. Pin and tack about 1½cms from the
cut edge and sew down from the top to about half or two-thirds of
the way down, depending on how high you want the side/back split to
go. Use a low zig-zag setting on your sewing machine, so the zig-zag
is only 1 or 2mm wide. You should now have a tube of fabric.
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Elasticate
the top (your "waistband"). This is the trickiest bit of the procedure.
Use elastic about 3cm wide, and
the same length as your hip measurement, where the
"waistband" of the skirt will be. Overlap the two
ends together by 2 or 3 cms so that the elastic is in a ring shape,
and sew the ends together.
Then put the ring of elastic
inside your fabric tube at the top end (the end without the split),
and turn the top edge of the fabric over the top edge of the
elastic. The ring of elastic is slightly smaller than the
amount of fabric you have got, so you will need to stretch the
elastic a little when you sew the elastic onto the fabric. Pin
it before you try to sew the elastic in, to work out an even
"gather" rate. I usually do this by marking the elastic in
quarters and the fabric in quarters and matching the marks up.
Pin the fabric and the elastic together at those quarter points,
then you can do the same with the midway points between the pins and
pin them at these 1/8 points, and if you really want to, again, at
the 1/16 points. When pinning the elastic to the fabric, use
the pins vertically, rather than horizontally, with the sharp end of
the pin pointing downwards towards the hem of the skirt.
Sew the elastic to the fabric
using a wide zig-zag (3 or 4mm wide), so that it goes through the
two fabric layers and the elastic. You will need to stretch
the elastic as you feed it through the machine, to maintain the
elasticity.
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| Hem
the bottom edge of the skirt including the split.
Decorate as you wish!
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The Finished Article
Because the skirt has only one seam, it will look fine whether you
wear it with the split at the side (as shown here) or with
the split at the back- the shapelessness can become an advantage!
If you are more confident in your skills you can convert this into a
Trumpet skirt, by inserting 6 godets of matching (or contrasting, if you
prefer) fabric
Trumpet Skirt
NOTE If
you are working with velvet, remember the "pile". The
velvet texture should feel like you can stroke it upwards (from your
knees up to your hips), rather than downwards. This is because if
the pile faces down, any hip belt will slip more easily downwards off
your hips. If the pile faces up, then the velvet is helping to
keep your hip belt on. Back
to the instructions
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