My First Self-drafted Skirt

Hiya peeps, how are we doing today? Great, I hope. Firstly, apologies for the lack of post last week. Apparently, working on multiple projects at once isn’t really my thing. I struggled and I almost lost my sew-jo, plus I was under the weather last week – still am actually. So, I’ve decided to go back to my old system; one project at a time.

Anyways, today’s post is going to be a bit different. I am not reviewing a pattern, instead I’ll tell you about my first foray into drafting.  Yes, I drafted this skirt woohoo!

I know, I know it’s only a skirt, but boy I am sooo happy that I did it. I have always wanted to have that skill, where you can look at a piece of garment and just recreate it yourself.

The idea came to me about two weeks ago when I was in town, checking out the window displays in the shops, seeking inspo for my next sewing project. I saw lots of mini denim skirts in M&S, H&M, and Topshop. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to try drafting? And so I did.

The skirt has princess seams, two front patch pockets, button front, and belt loops. I started with drafting a pencil skirt that consists of waistband, front piece, and back piece. As I wanted a mini A-line skirt, I then flared the hem out, cut the front and the back pieces to make the princess seams, added 1.5cm seam allowance to each cut side. For the button band I basically cut 2 long strips of fabric, 9.5cm wide (to make 4cm wide band: 2x4cm plus 1.5cm SA) x the length of the unhemmed skirt. The strips were then stitched to the front openings of the skirt, folded lengthwise and topstitched in place.

I didn’t have toile fabric at the time so I went straight with the fashion fabric, obviously basting stitches first. As for the pockets, they were almost like an afterthought. I wanted a pair of patch pockets from the beginning and I wanted them to be kind of “blended in” with the front seams. As this was my first skirt without a pattern, I had to assemble the skirt first so I could draft the pocket pieces, check the slant and the position of the pockets. I used bias binding for the top of the pockets, just because. To finish the seams I used the faux flat-felled seams.

The fabric I used is a 8oz washed denim in indigo that I purchased from Fabric Godmother. I bought 1m of it, and I had a bit of leftover, enough for a make-up pouch or another Noodlehead pencil case. I am actually quite happy with how this turned out. It is not perfect at all, but I really, I mean really enjoyed the process, from the dreaming of the design to the final press and wearing. This project felt like it really stretched my creativity.

I’ve worn this skirt already and I actually got compliments – I mean, wow! It felt different to the usual “Oh thank you, I made it myself” reply, as I could say “Oh thank you, it’s my own design!” 😀

Another thing I loved about this project is that I got to hammer in those jeans buttons for the first time and I must say, it was oddly satisfying haha. I hate sewing on buttons so those bad boys were just perfect. As this was the first iteration of my dream skirt, there are so many things still for me to work on and learn. I’m already sketching out more versions of this skirt and dreaming of Summer tops to pair it with.

So, that’s all from me today. I hope you all have a great weekend and week ahead. Thank you so much for spending a bit of your time with me today, see you again soon. Take care and happy stitching.

Faye.

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