In order to sew such a skirt, we needed:
- Light brown silk fabric;
- Scissors;
- White threads;
- Sewing needle and pinning needles;
- Zipper;
- Several decorative figures of flowers;
- Measuring tape (centimeter);
- Paper and a simple pencil.
Getting to work, we measured the dimensions for the future skirt using a special tape: the length from the waist (hips) to the knees, the circumference of the waist and hips, and measured the distance of one step (extended leg).
You need to measure this distance in order to correctly calculate the volume of the future skirt and not make it too narrow.
For example, in our case, the hip circumference is 73 cm, the waist circumference is 67 cm, the length from waist to knee is 51 cm, and the step length is 120 cm.
Having received all the necessary data for sewing, we take the fabric, and, counting about 1.5 cm in the top side and on the sides for the allowance, we cut off the required piece (we have 153 cm in width and 155 cm in length), after which We fold a certain number of folds on one of the longitudinal sides of the fabric (from 10 to 12, 3.6 cm each) to “compress” it and make it equal in length to the waist circumference. Each fold must be secured with pinning needles:
Next we sew all the folds:
After this, the upper section of the fabric, which is the allowance, must be folded several times so that the trimmed sections of the fabric are hidden, and secured with needles, and then sewn:
After this, we begin making the belt. First, we take a piece of fabric equal in length to the circumference of the waist or hips, and approximately 10 - 12 cm wide. Fold it lengthwise, secure it with pinning needles, and then sew it together. If there is no piece of fabric of suitable length and there are only short ones, you can take them and make two parts of the future belt from them, and then sew them together. When sewing, you can use a special machine, but if you don’t have one, you can sew by hand:
For sewing we took two short pieces of fabric. We need to turn each stitched piece inside out, and then connect the two ends together.
You need to sew them so that you can hide the too noticeable seam in the middle. It can be hidden, for example, behind decorative flower shapes:
Next, we sew the skirt to the resulting belt using the allowance areas. To ensure that the skirt can be put on without problems if it turns out to be too narrow, we sewed a zipper on the back. We also decided to connect the longitudinal sides of the skirt with seams, folding the allowance sections into them several times.
We sewed by hand, and due to the tightening of the thread, it turned out a little uneven. Turning the resulting skirt inside out, let's see how it looks from the front:
However, the back edges of the skirt were not straight and needed to be repaired. This is what it looks like on the inside:
Having trimmed the excess, we fold the ends of the fabric several times and pin them with needles:
To make the seams more accurately and quickly, we used a sewing machine. The seams turned out perfect and the edges of the skirt became smoother:
Next, we need to take fabric up to 120 cm wide and up to 16 cm long, and measure small areas of allowance along the edges (from 1.5 cm). Then, fold the upper edges of this fabric several times and stitch them. This fabric will become the frilly trim for our skirt. However, in our case, there was no long fabric, and so we decided to sew together three pieces of fabric (40 cm long and 16 cm wide):
Next, we sew the top edges of all pieces of fabric, and then connect them all together:
Having sewn all three parts, we begin to sew the bottom edge of the fabric. To give the fabric a frilly look, we decided to make half-loop seams:
When doing this embroidery, you should not pull the thread too tightly: then the fabric will wrinkle and need to be adjusted. And if the thread runs out, you will need to carefully tie a new one to the remaining thread. It will be convenient:
This is how we get frilly fabric:
Next, we need to “adjust” the upper side of the fabric to the size of the belt. To do this, we decided to fold many different folds into the fabric and sew them together. We then decided to sew the side edges of the resulting fabric and attach it to the skirt under the waistband.First we decided to make sure that the fabric was the perfect size and length for the skirt, so we pinned it with needles under the waistband:
The zipper no longer seems sewn so unevenly to us. When sewing on the frilly fabric, we decided to fold the tubercles formed when assembling the folds not to the side, but “spread them” in half, so that there would be no too large tubercles that would be difficult to stitch:
Hand sewing here can take about an hour. This is what the finished skirt looks like:
By making it from scrap materials, you can save time and money on the purchase. It took us five days in total to make, as we almost always worked on it by hand. This is what it looks like when you put it on:
Sincerely, Vorobyova Dinara.
