Just in Time for Spring and Summer: Maxi Skirts

I've had a busy past couple of days, this past week in fact, and right when I was ready to post this last night I realized I had left my laptop charger at work. It's the end of the semester and so I have a ton of projects and finals I'm getting ready to prepare for. I did make it over to JoAnn's on Sunday and used up some of my 50 and 40% off coupons!  I didn't find any fabric that I loved for my Minoru Jacket, which is okay because my pattern still hasn't arrived yet, but I picked up some jersey knit and this other stretchy fabric that I used to make some maxi skirts. I have enough of the stretchy fabric left over that I'm going to make a beach/cover wrap dress with!

Copyright Miriam Tribe - madmim.com

This was such a simple project, it really only took me a couple hours to make a  couple of these skirts. I was having some problems with my thread as it kept snapping and breaking, but that's what I get for buying the .99 cent kind from the clearance bin. I followed the tutorial posted on MadMim, not only does she have great visual and written instructions for taking your measurements, but she has them for drafting your pattern and sewing all of your pieces together. I only constructed the A-line version but she has a gathered version included as well.

I only needed 2 yards of fabric per skirt, however I did have a lot of leftover odd shaped trimmings that I saved to make use of another day. The only thing I would change about these is that I would subtract 2-3 inches off of my waist measurement when drafting/cutting out the pattern. You do that for the waistband in order to get a snug fit, but then you have to gather the extra skirt fabric, and I ended up with a couple of weird gathers. I tried to get the gathers to line up with the side seams, but not all of them did. Since you're working with nice stretchy fabric/jersey taking off those 2-3 inches isn't an issue as your fabric will stretch when you put the skirts on. The skirts weren't terribly loose, but I would prefer a tighter fit. I'm going to wait until washing them (hopefully they'll shrink a bit) to decide if I want to rip out the seams from the waistband, cut it a few inches shorter, and resew it on to get the fit I'm looking for.

I've had a busy past couple of days, this past week in fact, and right when I was ready to post this last night I realized I had left my laptop charger at work. It's the end of the semester and so I have a ton of projects and finals I'm getting ready to prepare for. I did make it over to JoAnn's on Sunday and used up some of my 50 and 40% off coupons!  I didn't find any fabric that I loved for my Minoru Jacket, which is okay because my pattern still hasn't arrived yet, but I picked up some jersey knit and this other stretchy fabric that I used to make some maxi skirts. I have enough of the stretchy fabric left over that I'm going to make a beach/cover wrap dress with!

Copyright Miriam Tribe - madmim.com

This was such a simple project, it really only took me a couple hours to make a  couple of these skirts. I was having some problems with my thread as it kept snapping and breaking, but that's what I get for buying the .99 cent kind from the clearance bin. I followed the tutorial posted on MadMim, not only does she have great visual and written instructions for taking your measurements, but she has them for drafting your pattern and sewing all of your pieces together. I only constructed the A-line version but she has a gathered version included as well.

I only needed 2 yards of fabric per skirt, however I did have a lot of leftover odd shaped trimmings that I saved to make use of another day. The only thing I would change about these is that I would subtract 2-3 inches off of my waist measurement when drafting/cutting out the pattern. You do that for the waistband in order to get a snug fit, but then you have to gather the extra skirt fabric, and I ended up with a couple of weird gathers. I tried to get the gathers to line up with the side seams, but not all of them did. Since you're working with nice stretchy fabric/jersey taking off those 2-3 inches isn't an issue as your fabric will stretch when you put the skirts on. The skirts weren't terribly loose, but I would prefer a tighter fit. I'm going to wait until washing them (hopefully they'll shrink a bit) to decide if I want to rip out the seams from the waistband, cut it a few inches shorter, and resew it on to get the fit I'm looking for.