Circle Skirt

I successfully finished my first-ever sewing project!

I made a circle skirt that looks totally legit and that I fully intend to wear in public all the time. I'm so excited about it!

Look how fun it is to twirl in:

I used this circle skirt tutorial from Made to make a prototype of my skirt out of muslin.  When I tried on the prototype, I decided to add an inch of length all the way around the skirt as well as an extra 1. 75 inches of length in the back so that the skirt would look like it's the same length in the front and the back even though I have more to cover in the back.

When I was drawing my pattern and I was making the back of the skirt longer than the front, I made the entire back half of the circle one length and then gradually made the other half shorter, so only the front quarter of the skirt was the shortest length.  This made sense in my head while I was making the pattern, but once I tried on the skirt I realized I had made a mistake; the front and the back of the skirt look like they're the same length, but the sides of the skirt look longer than everywhere else.

That's how I learned that I should have made the entire front half of the skirt the shortest length and then gradually transitioned to the longest length in the back half of the skirt.  If I had done that, I think the sides would not look longer than the front and the back.

Have you ever made a circle skirt that was a little longer in the back than the front?  Do you think that the lesson I learned from this project is correct?

Oh, and do you see that serged edge on the bottom of the skirt?  Once I made a pattern out of muslin (using the math equations from the awesome Made tutorial plus my own 1.75 inch addition to the length of the back of the skirt) and once I had traced the pattern onto my real fabric, I cut out the skirt and serged the bottom edge of the circle as well as the top edge that would go around my waist.  Then I measured the length of elastic I needed to go around my waist and sewed it together to make a circle.  I finished it off by pinning that elastic waistband onto the skirt and sewing it all together.

I used a 1 inch elastic for the waistband because it was navy blue and matched the fabric, but if Joann's had had 2 inch elastic in the correct color, I would have preferred to use that just for aesthetic reasons.  I don't love the feeling of an elastic band digging into my stomach, so I made the waistband fairly loose.

I love that sewing my own skirt meant that I could make that waistband as loose as I wanted it to be, and that the back of the skirt could be a little longer than the front so it would sit properly on my body type.

I'm totally addicted to sewing now!

I'm thinking of making a high/low skirt for my next project...

Happy stitching!
xoxo
Laura

Sewing a Circle Skirt

I've decided to learn how to sew.  I made this decision partly because I have access to a couple machines and a teacher (thanks Justin!) and partly because I stumbled across Madalynne's beautiful sewing blog and fell in love with the whole idea of sewing my own clothes.

I'm starting with a circle skirt because I love wearing them and I heard that they're a good beginner project.  Have you made one before?  Would you agree?

I found a pretty great tutorial on Made that explained how to make a pattern for the skirt with my exact measurements, so I did that, and then Justin helped me make a muslin prototype of the skirt.

Here's what I learned from the prototype:

1. I'm terrible at sewing a straight line.  I had no idea it was even possible to be that bad at it. I'm going to do a lot of practicing on scrap fabric before I attempt to sew the elastic onto the actual skirt I'm making.  Are there any tricks to help me on this front or will it just come with practice?

2. I don't want my circle skirt to be an actual circle.  When I tried on the prototype, it looked noticeably longer in the front than the back.  That makes perfect sense to me because there's a lot more of me to cover in the back.  ;-)  I'm going to amend my pattern to add a couple more inches of fabric in the back while leaving the front the same length that it is now.  I guess I'll actually be making an oval skirt?

Adding length in the back to make a garment perfectly compliment my body type is what I love about the idea of being able to sew.  I don't want to blindly follow patterns; I want to make patterns work for me.  I want my clothes to be custom!

I know my grand plans don't match my skill level at the moment (duh), but wouldn't it be awesome if they did match up one day?  (I'm pretty sure step one is mastering a straight line, haha.)

Do you know how to sew?  Do you have any tips for a very beginner?
Thanks for humoring me!
xoxo
Laura