Knits 101 Session 8: Sew a Skirt

Okay, if you're looking for a fun knit project to start with, this skirt is actually one of the best. It's easy-peasy, you only have like four or five seams to do plus a hem and you can make it to fit your body. I have made a maxi skirt. You can make any length of skirt that you want to make, and it's really simple. So the first thing you actually need to do to make this skirt is to take your measurements. So you want to take your measurements using a measuring tape and put the measuring tape around your waist or wherever you want the skirt to fall. So if you're going to have the height about here, then that's perfect. Or you want it higher. If you want to make this a dress, which you absolutely could do, then you'd want to measure your bust. So measure your waist, then measure your hips, and then take the measuring tape and put it at the waist or whatever the highest point is going to be, drop the measuring tape to the floor. Ideally, have a friend look at it and tell you what the measurement is at the top of your foot. Or you can step on the measuring tape and then back up and look at it on the floor. So you can see how far it is all the way down to the floor. And then do some math, subtract say your ankle and foot from that. Again, I like to have my skirts hit just at the top of my foot so that they swish when I walk, if you want to higher skirt, go for it, make it a little bit shorter, that's absolutely fine. If you wanted to just make a knee-length skirt, that's fine as well. So I'm actually gonna make a miniskirt today as we work. So I'll be working off of a 24-inch waist. And don't worry if you don't get any of these numbers down, the complete instructions for this are available as a download with this class. And you can go, if you have already printed that out, you might want to read it and follow along. Otherwise I'll give you the instructions now and then you'll also have it reiterated in that document. So you take your waist measurement and you also need to do a stretch test on your fabric. We tested this fabric earlier and we know that it's a 30% stretch. So take your waist measurement, which in this case is going to be 24, subtract three inches because it stretched three inches when I pulled the 10 inches, and that'll put us at 21 and then divide that by two, so that's going to be 10 and a half. So that's going to be the upper waist measurement of this. Now, if you're worried about seam allowances, if you don't want it to be very tight on the top of you, I like to make mine pretty snug so it stays up. Go ahead and add in a half inch for seam allowances or which would be two quarter inch seam allowances or a full inch if you want to do two half inch seam allowances, depending on how you intend to finish your seams. I'm going to overlock, which is about a quarter of an inch seam, and I'm not worried about it being tight up top because the knit will actually stretch just a little bit past that 30% that I measured prior. So it's nothing you have to really worry about. But so we've done that math, we know that it's gonna be 10 and a half, again that's your waist measurement, subtract the number of inches it stretches in its stretch test and then divide it by two. So we're at 10 and a half. So I'm going to just mark up here, starting at 10 and a half. Straight across and I'll label this waist. Okay, now you're going to take your length measurement and add one and a half inches to it. That one and a half inches is going to be for the hem and for the attachment of the waistband up above, because we're right now we're making the skirt pattern piece. We'll make the waist pattern piece shortly thereafter. So you have your 10 and a half here. You want to make sure that you mark the center point. So that's going to be five and a quarter. I'm going to mark the center point there. And from that center point, I'm going to align up. Oh, and I'm working with, because I'm making a little skirt, I'm going to do 24 inch long skirt. That's plus my one and a half inches. So, I'm going to line up and I like to take the straight line I just made and line it up here with a line on my acrylic ruler. Ideally you would have a really long acrylic ruler to do this with. I did not bring mine today, so I don't have one. So I know I'm making 24 inches here. So that'll be 11. And I'm gonna line that up with, hm let's do one more inch. So that's going to make this 10 plus 11 is 21. And we were making this 24. So we need three more inches. So I'm going to measure to the three inches past that edge there. And there we go. This is my length of the skirt. There you have it. And then you're gonna make your hem measurement. So to figure out how wide you want your skirt to be, this is a pretty, it's pretty, it's an A line, but it's not a real thick A, it's not a real wide a if you will, there's enough in there to move around and spin and be lovely, but it's a slim line skirt. You could of course add voluminous fabric to this. And it would be just super wide and spinny and fun, but I've made mine a slim look. So what I did is I took my waist measurement, which in this case is 24 inches. And then I multiply that by one and a half. And then I divided that by two. And then I added an inch. Don't worry about the math. It's going to all be on the sheet that comes with this class. So after I do all that math, that's going to be, let's see 24 times one and a half is 36 divided by two is 18. So plus an inch for just a little extra, which is my hem. So that's going to be 19 inches. So using this as my center mark and right on the center of my fabric here, actually 19. Nine and a half. So I'll actually line this up with nine and a half because that's half of 19. We'll measure right across there. We'll just join those. I have an extra quarter inch now in this. And again, we'll line it up on the nine and a half inch line, which will end up being 19. And there is your basic skirt pattern. Now you want to take your ruler and connect those lines. One thing that I've been known to do, if I don't have an extra long ruler is to use a measuring tape to connect the two dots, to create that straight line. But as luck would have it, I've already made this pattern piece and it's just hiding right over here. So let's pull that out and look at it. So you can see, I have my hem, my waist and my length measurement there. And it ends up being this small piece here that I'm going to use to make a smaller skirt. In addition to this piece, which is the skirt, you need to make a waist piece or a waistband. Your waistband will be the exact same measurement as you had up here. So we decided that's 10 and a half. So this is 10 and a half inches wide, because you want those to match up perfectly. And then it should be at least 10 inches so that you can have this yoga fold over that we have here. And so that means you're going to fold it in half and it's going to just fold down nicely. So it'll have five inches and you can fold it down. If you want a longer fold over, go ahead and extend that up. If you want it to have a 15 inches, that's fine. I like the five inches. It folds down nicely and it looks pretty. It looks pretty classy, I think. So this end od my piece of course is the waist measurement that matches exactly right here, by 10 inches, and that's your waistband. So these are the only two pattern pieces we need to make this skirt. You want to get them cut out after you've drafted them and ready to go and go ahead and cut it out of your fabric so you have all your fabric pieces, and I'm going to go ahead and get my fabric pieces and be right back with you to show you how to sew the skirt. Okay. We made our pattern piece and I cut mine out. I have two skirts here, as you can see. And I have two waistbands. And the very first step you want to do is to do the side seams, both the skirt and the waistband. So we would put our fabric right sides together. And of course, working with knits, you got to make sure that they're slinky and or make sure that they're not too slinky on you. So, you have these right sides together and then just pin along the edge. And I'm using my very fine pins for this so that it doesn't mar the fabric in any way. And just pin every few inches or so, whatever you're most comfortable with, if you're worried that it's going to come undone, feel free to pin more, or go ahead and put some steam a seam in here and that'll just go ahead and attach it for you. And then you don't even have to worry about. You don't even necessarily have to sew it, it'll just be all glued together. No, that's not a good idea. Don't do that. You could put steam a seam in, and then sew over it, that would be the proper way to do it. The glue I'm sure would come undone. And then what would you do? Your skirt would just fall right off. So we're going to sew up these side seams here. I have that one nice and pinned, of course you'd want to go ahead and pin the other side right there. Same goes for the waistband. And what stitch you use is totally up to you. You can use the zigzag stitch if that's what you're most comfortable with, you can use a, and oh, as you can see, because this is striped fabric, I'm also being careful to match my stripes as I go. And I just want to make sure that those are all lined up. And same goes for the waistband. So I'm going to line up these stripes right here. And pin these edges together. So the first two seams or four seems really, if you think of it that way, are going to be... And sometimes your fabric is ornery and you just have to show it who's boss. There we go. So your first few seams are going to be here, here and on your skirt, the long sides seams. So you want to sew all four of those, and as luck would have it, I have already done that. So you can see, once you do an overlock stitch there, you just have your skirt all nice and stitched on the edges. I've got my stripes lined up and on the waistband, which is now folded. You can see, I stitched that like so, and then I folded it in half, putting the wrong sides inside. And this is the right side on the outside now. And at this point, we want to go ahead and attach our waistband to our skirt. So to do that, we have the right side out on our waistband now. So we're going to tuck that inside this upper edge of the skirt. And of course we have endeavored to make our skirt upper waist width exact same. If you discover that maybe it's not exact that's okay, we're going to work with that. I like to divide the bulk of my seam allowances. So I'm pushing these seam allowances on the waistband to the right, and I'm pushing these seam allowances on the skirt to the left. So that's not such a wide knot there, you can, if you're a stickler, and you want them all going the same direction, feel free to put them all going in the same direction. But I like to divide the bulk. So we're going to do a pin right there, and line up the other side seam right over here. And make sure that the upper edge of the skirt is exactly the same as the upper edge of the waistband, especially because you have those two lines of waistbands right there. Or those two layers of waistbands. You want to make sure it matches both layers of waistbands. If it accidentally... if you accidentally only get one waistband and not the other, when you're sitting this, you'll have to go back and resew and that's no fun. Okay. And you can put some extra pins in along here, however you like. I'm just going to do a few, just to keep it quick and easy and fun. And then I'm going to use an overcast stitch for this seam because the waistband, A, I like the way it looks when it's finished. And B, the waistband will get quite a bit of wear and movement as you wear it, especially if you're dancing and moving your hips a lot, you need to take that into consideration. I'm going to remove the arms so I can sew in the round here, though, you may not even need to do that unless you're sewing one for a baby, because all babies need, of course, a maxi skirt. Okay, so I'm going to feed the fabric right through the over edge portion, the little opening in my overage foot, and I've already, Oh, I have not. I have not selected my preferred over edge stitch, but now I have. Okay, needle down and I'll do a backstitch, which is just a bar tack and we'll get going. We're just going to sit right around the edge, go at whatever pace you're most comfortable with. I've been sewing a lot of these skirts lately, so I'm okay going very quickly. And I'll remove my pin because safety first. So it's nice, the thread is wrapping right around that edge there. It's going to give it a professional look. And this upper waistband here with the foldover top is like a yoga waistband that you would see on yoga pants. So now that you know how to do it, you could make yourself some yoga pants out of jersey, wouldn't that be fun? And when you're going over the side seams, I like to go a little bit fast, some people like to go a little slow. Go slow at first and then go fast once you're comfortable. I just think, Oh, the momentum will carry the machine right over. And of course, after you sewed those first few seams, you can press the seams, which helps set the thread. It'll melt a little bit, technically is what's happening, and it's more permanently attached there. And then for the little bit at the end here, we'll just go back over those first few stitches and bar tack. Or push the reverse button. Okay. So let's look at what we have. I'm going to clip our threads like so. And now our waistband is connected to our skirt. So we're almost done, you guys, there's only one more thing to do on this skirt. You can see it's this long, fun skirt here with your waistband that can then be folded down when you wear it. Like so, like we have right here on our lovely model. And now all we have to do is the hem, which is the last step. Oh, double check, go around and look at your seam and make sure that you caught all the edges. Like you can see right here that I didn't quite catch that edge. So what I want to do is fold it back over and stitch over that part real quick with the overcast stitch to make sure that I got both layers of the waistband. And see, as you can see, it happens to the best of us. Sometimes you don't catch all the layers but make sure that that happened for you. And press it. You want to get your wrinkles out and make sure that the top crease here on the waistband is nice and solid. So try the skirt on at this point and get ready to hem it. You have a little extra leeway down at the bottom so that you can bring it up a little or let it loose. If you find that at this point you didn't measure correctly, or that you like it extra long, you can leave this bottom edge raw. That's absolutely fine. It will roll up on its own and its own time. And it will look fine. You could also just put a quick zigzag stitch around the edge and let it be raw. And then it'll only roll to that zigzag stitch. Whatever you prefer. I'm going to hem and we're going to use a double needle. So I need to get the machine set up for that and I'll show you how I pressed my hem up, and then how I use some steam a seam to make it extra sturdy. So I'm going to go ahead and get those set up and we'll be right back. Okay, I've put my twin needle in the machine. We have our skirt that we're ready to sew here. And I've actually finished off the majority of the hem of this skirt, but I'll show you what I've done so that you can see exactly how it works. So with the raw edge, you want to put the steam a seam on that we looked at earlier and then you just peel off this paper here that's been asking to be peeled off. And make sure that that's all lined up right there, right on the edge. And then fold up. And press it. So I'm going to put that on my ironing board. Make sure my iron's nice and hot. Okay. So when we press this, it's going to adhere that glue that's on a steam a seam in place. And just press and hold and count to 10 or sing a little song, whenever you wanna do. Strangers in the night. So, press that on, the glue adheres. And then I, as you can see, I've pressed mine up a second time right there. So I'm going to go ahead and do that as well. So I'm just going to fold right on that edge that I pressed it on earlier, and you can go around and measure and make sure it's folded accurately the whole way around. Sometimes your fabric disagrees with you and you just have to tell it who's boss. There we go. Start with quite a bit there. And press as we go around. So yeah, you can get your seam gauge out and measure this to make sure that your hem is the exact same width all the way around. If you're leaving it raw, you don't even have to do that. If you wanted to do one of the other edges we did earlier like a banded edge or a double raw edge, follow the instructions that we had earlier in the video. And you'd be pretty much ready to go. Okay, so with that pressed, I use a double needle on the bottom hem here, just because I think that's a nice professional finish. It looks a lot like a cover lock stitch, which you'll probably see on several of your garments that you've purchased that are made of knit. So cover lock is often done on a different type of machine than you have. Some sergers can do cover locks. But in general cover locks, they look like it's surged on the one side and it's, on the wrong side, it looks like a serged seam. And on the right side it looks like a double needle seam. So I'm just going to pin this up, even though I've pressed it, because safety first, right? Make sure that it's going to look good. If you if you pin and take some precautions now it'll turn out great in the end. There's that edge right there that I'm going to stitch the double needle on. You can see I'm just going to connect where I haven't finished sewing the double needle on the rest of the skirt here. So we're ready to bring our sewing machine over. And of course I did the rest with the single color of thread I'm going to use white and pink, because that's how we used our double needle earlier. So it was just consistent for us. But you would want to use either a matching color of thread, if you're into a contrast in color of thread, go for it. I'm on the right stitch. We'll back stitch to get it all nice in place. And then just sew right along, making sure that you keep your double needle stitches consistent right along the edge that you want them on so that they look straight and even and lovely, if you need to pull on the backside, that's fine, but don't pull too tightly because of the stretch and the fabric, it will actually stretch out this seam and get warped. As we go. Carefully removing our pins because that would just be a travesty if we sewed right over a pin. And backstitch. Okay, so, there we go, it's all stitched. And set our machine aside, we're finished sewing with it for now. And you can see, my edge here with the pink and the white, I got a little close to the edge here and because I'm a perfectionist, I would probably pull that out and fix it, but my machine was being a little ornery. Stitch right along. But if you look at the entirety of it, it looks pretty nice and even. And it's a really nice professionally finished edge there with that double needle. You can of course also use an extra wide double needle that we saw earlier for a slightly different look to it. But otherwise your skirt is finished and you're ready to wear it out on the town for somewhere fun. Now you might notice that this skirt has horizontal stripes and that skirt has diagonal stripes. I cut this one horizontally because that's the maximum stretch of this fabric. You would not want to cut so that there were vertical stripes because it doesn't stretch vertically and would not fit very well. But I cut this horizontal stripes, that's the maximum stretch of my fabric there, but here I cut it on the bias just because I wanted to have a chevron-y look, a little fun off to the diagonal for you there. And you can do that as well. It just makes sure it's at 45 degrees when you cut the fabric out, when you cut your pattern out and make sure it matches 45 degrees on the front and 45 on the back and match up your stripes on the side seams. So there you go, we've sewed a skirt and we have learned almost everything there is to know about knits. I'm sure there's maybe a little bit more knowledge out there, but this is a great way to get started with this course. And I hope you're feeling like you're ready to sew some knits and jump right into it. It's been really fun teaching you everything I know today and I hope you have a great time sewing.