Following on from the Coquelicot skirt and Charlie at The Stitchery’s extensive exploration of the split side skirts and dresses, somewhere in the late summer I decided to dive into my stash and start my own set of experiments in this mold.
Like Charlie, I tend to not actually use patterns. I did purchase a copy of the original pattern, under the theory that if I was doing something “inspired by”, I really did want to support the original artist. On the other hand, after making over a dozen of these, I now have some Very Firm Opinions about how the style works best for me and my sewing brain.
Let’s start with: unlike both of the inspiration projects, I don’t do circle skirts. I did two of them as I’ve been experimenting with the style and both made me very twitchy about fabric waste. Thankfully, both of them were made from queen size sheets where I paid $5 at Savers and so I grit my teeth and dealt with it. The swoosh-factor of a circle skirt is high. On the other hand, I strongly prefer the lines of a-line skirts and then I also end up with significantly less fabric waste at the end.
The other major difference about the pattern I’ve settled into is that I don’t use ties or lacing for the closures. The way I wear my shirts and blouses, ties just create lumps at the waist and lacing in the front tends to emphasize my stomach in a way I don’t care for (and also find uncomfortable after a few hours). My skirts have a couple of different adjustable closures, but they are either: hooks and bars, with multiple bars for adjustability, or pairs of D-rings.
Under minor differences – most people have the pockets attached to the back “half” of the skirt and waistband. I attach them to both the front and back waistband, in such a way that as I adjust the size of the skirt, I never have a gap. Given that I’ve got 3 that are lined versions, with the lining in colors that are high-contrast, I don’t want to flash the lining because I’ve had to let it out a bit.
Fabric: Anything sturdy enough to not lose it’s shape when you put things in pockets. I’ve been doing them in cotton, linen, wool, flannel, jersey, denim, polar fleece – mostly woven, some sturdy knits. You’ll want at least 45″ wide and 2x your desired length (plus seam allowance and hem). For the cutting diagram below, you’ll want that length to be at least 2/3 your waist measurement, because you’re cutting out the waistband at the same time.
Measurements: Waist, desired length.
Other Notions: 4 d-rings or 2 sets of hooks and bars
In this cutting diagram, my waist is 36″. That puts half my waist at 18, then +2″ for overlap and seam allowances. This diagram assumes 1/2″ seam allowances. I like my skirts at about 36″ long – that puts them at tea length on me, below my calf muscle but above my ankles. Most of the fabrics I’ve been making these out of are directional, so I have two pieces stacked on top of each other. If you’re not dealing with a directional fabric, feel free to fold at the top or bottom. In any case, you’ll need two of everything shown and it’s easier to cut them at the same time.
The blue here is the skirt itself – eventually, we’ll cut that bottom to have more of a curve. The yellow strips are the waistband and ties – 4″ wide, folding in half with seam allowance gives a 1.5″ wide waistband. The long one is going to center on the top, and then the shorter ones on the sides The red trapezoids are the pockets – on 55″ fabric, this means that the pockets are 11″ wide at the bottom, and I generally make them 12-14″ long. The black triangles? Those are the waste fabric from this pattern.
Next step – sewing the elements together. Sew the short waistband pieces to either end of the long waistband piece. You should have 2 very long skinny rectangles. Sew the pockets together along the right angle (the top, and the piece that was next to the waistband), and up the angle a little bit, leaving about an 8″ gap. Sew the two sides of the skirt together, again, leaving about 8″ open at the top. You now have 5 pieces.
Now we insert the pockets – with right sides together, put the unsewn edge of the pocket against the unsewn 8″ edge of the side seam of the skirt. When you have the skirt inside out, the pocket is like a wing.
This is when you have to pick which half of the skirt is the front and which half is the back. Tuck the pocket inside the seam. Measure about half the width of each side of the top of the pocket. On the picture, I’ve marked the seams where the pocket is sewn into the skirt and in the middle where the two halves of the pocket are sewn together. On the front half, half of the front pocket is folded in and attached to the inside of the front of the skirt and sewn into the waistband. On the back, the pocket is folded out and half of it is attached to the waistband. The advantage to this over most of the other types of pockets with the split side styles is that you don’t go hunting your pocket, once your hand is in the slit. It only took dropping the phone a dozen times before I had had enough, and I’m very used to slit-in-skirt, hanging-from-the-belt 17th/18th c pockets. For everyday wear, I wanted pockets my faulty hands wouldn’t miss.
Iron your waistband in half longways, then center and pin your waistband on, one piece on the front, one piece on the back. Sew it on. You will probably want to iron the raw edge of the waistband in towards the middle fold, so that when you fold it over and pin it to the inside of the skirt, you encase all the raw edges. Attach the inside of the waistband to the skirt.
Now that you have the center fold and the seam allowances for the waistband, sew the remaining width of it all the way down, On the top one, I have hooks and two bars on both the front and back waists. On the blue one, I have a pair of D rings on one side of the back waistband (with the other side being a ribbon that I can thread through to secure it) and the front waistband is really long and becomes a sash I can tie on. It was one of my earlier ones, and it’s also summer weight batik cotton – even the bow isn’t bulky when the fabric is that thin.
Once you have the waistband in, hang the skirt up in your closet or a bathroom or somewhere where it has space, because we need gravity to go to work on the side seams. No matter what fabric you’re using, when you cut across the grain, the fabric loses some structural integrity and it’s going to drop. If you hem it before you let gravity do its thing, you will have an uneven hem. Wait at least 24 hrs. 48-72 is better.
If you know how to curve your hems without marking them on distance from the floor, go to it. If not, ask a friend to trim around the bottom so that it’s an even distance off the floor. Remember as the model, *don’t look down* while they’re doing this because it will cause the front to be shorter than the back – body mechanics do that.
Have fun.
And yes, the plaid one is flannel lined in polar fleece. I just cut out two more skirt panels out of the lining fabric. I live in New England. I have 3 of these in different outer fabrics, because my office is always freezing. Always.
Leaves of Silk and Glass 