Retro Skirt of My Own Design With Tutorial

And here's my new skirt from the fabric I was so fortunate to receive from Molly. Thanks, Molly! I love it. It has a wonderful retro look and feel to it. The skirt is of my own design. Below is a little tutorial on how I did it. It's quick and easy and something you can do in about 15 to 25 minutes. So if you need a quick skirt, grab some cute fabric and go for it. I'm off to do a photo shoot. I'll show you Monday what a fun skirt this is to wear. *Update: Photo Shoot is now complete. Go here to see the photos.

First of all I decided how long I wanted the final length to be and cut off the excess. I also cut off a strip to use for the waistband since the is knit and has a bit of stretch to it. Otherwise, I could have used a piece of wide elastic on which to attach the skirt portion. If you use cotton or something other knit to makes yours, use wide elastic for the waistband. You don't even have to make a casing. Just sewing the the pleated or gathered skirt to the bottom inside portion of your elastic tube. Be sure to use the zig zag stitch so your stitches don't pop when stretched.

I measured just above my hips where I would like the skirt to sit and cut the waistband strip to that measurement and sewed together the ends with right sides together to make a tube.

I cut the width of the skirt portion to be about 1 1/2 times the width of my body. Then sewed it into a tube right sides together. The seam will be the back center seam.

Here are the two tubes, waistband and body of the skirt.

Then I folded and pinned the top of the skirt into little pleats all the way around. You could gather the top edge instead of pleating it by sewing two long basting stitches along the top and pulling the threads to gather. Then pin and stitch so your gathers don't come out.

Continue making pleats until the skirt is the same width around as your waistband. Then straight stitch over your pleats along the top, two rows a quarter of an inch apart to make sure the pleats do not come out. The turn the waistband inside out, lay it over the top edge of the skirt right sides together matching up your seams and stitch the edges together.

Flip the waistband up and turn under the top edge a quarter of an inch and stitch. And  that's it.  I didn't hem the bottom of the skirt since knit doesn't fray.

Thanks for looking. I'm off to do a photo shoot now and will show you how fun it is to wear this skirt on Monday. See you then.