Simple Skirt

Clearly, my sewing machine and I are best friends lately. I've been churning out projects like it's my job. Earlier this week, I decided that I wanted to make a skirt. I wasn't sure what I would wear to Thanksgiving dinner, so I thought it would be fun to try to wear something of my own creation. Happily, the tutorial I used, from Sweet Verbena, was very easy. I'm looking forward to trying some of her other tutorials in the future.

I used a vacation day on Wednesday, so I added a trip to Joann's to my list of errands to run. Since it was suggested that I use a knit fabric of some kind, I spent a while perusing the selections available before deciding on what I would call a rosy sort of color. It's a blend. Pretty sure it contains some rayon. It's so soft and comfy. As soon as I touched it, I loved it. I also picked up a couple of cute fabric quarters while I was there. They looked perfect for a Duck project. I'll get to that post at some point.

Later in the afternoon, I got down to business. Here is the fabric, folded in half on the long side with a little bit of the back side hanging over to add a little length to the skirt. Make sense?

I bought 1.5 inch elastic while I was out and, in order to make sure the casing for it was the correct size, I lined the elastic up at the top of the skirt and pinned just below.

I then sewed straight across the entire length of the fabric.

See? These are the stitches up close. I think the thread I picked was a good selection. It blends in nicely.

After this, I had to put the elastic through the casing and that, my friends, was no easy task. I attached a safety pin to the end of the elastic but it took forever. I think my fingers were just too jumbled up to make it an easy job. The tutorial said to cut the elastic one inch longer than what is a comfortable fit around where I wanted the skirt to be, but I think I made it much too long. I'll get to that.

All that was left was to sew the sides together to create the actual skirt. I turned the skirt inside out and sewed it together so the seam wouldn't be so visible on the outside. It was a lot more difficult to sew through the elastic than I anticipated and I wonder if I shouldn't have used a different needle. Next time, I suppose. I also sewed a smaller seam on the opposite side of the skirt so it would be even on both sides.

So after I put the skirt on the first time, I realized it was MUCH too loose. I undid the stitching where the two sides of the elastic met and cut off 1.5 to 2 inches from each side of the elastic. This made it a LOT better. It looked better, it felt better and I wasn't worried that I would lose the skirt while going about the day.

I wore the skirt to the Thanksgiving festivities at Boyfriend's sister's house and it seemed to go over well. I discovered that the bottom of the skirt may be a little bit asymmetrical, but Boyfriend's mom said she thought it was supposed to be that way so I'll roll with it. Here is a picture of my whole Thanksgiving outfit (sorry I'm not wearing shoes, haha). I'm posing with my dog friend, Regan. She's Boyfriend's dad's dog and I love her. I'm really happy that I was able to make a piece of clothing for myself and it turned out nicely enough that I could actually wear it the next day. Go me!