Easy full skirt (and a little tutorial)

This is a super easy skirt I whipped up in literally a few minutes. It is very easy, and I will say it again, very easy! You can make it and you will make it!

Err… anyway, the black fabric is Japanese fabric, made of thick cotton with brownish swirly pattern on it. Actually I wasn’t really sure what I was going to make when I bought the fabric, I was thinking of making a bag with it. Then I suddenly had this idea and proceeded to make it. The fabric has wide blank area on each sides, so I leave it raw and use them for the top of the skirt.

I also had this vintage Tais fabric, it’s a form of traditional weaving from East Timor, Indonesia. My mother has had them since I was little, and I remember that she often used them on several occasions. When I went to Indonesia last summer, she gave me a lot of vintage traditional fabric including this Tais, my mother has like a whole closet of these traditional fabric. Unfortunately the Tais has a lot of broken patches on it, so I decided to cut a strip and used it for my skirt.

The skirt is basically a pair of rectangles with elastic. It didn’t even need a pattern, but the finished result is quite adorable. I leave the raw edges of the strips shown, and after washing, it frayed a bit and the blue threads are exposed.

The tutorial
I’ve made a simple diagram for making the skirt. If you need a bigger size, just click the picture to go to my flickr page and download it.

Materials:

Fabric for skirt.

• The length of the skirt will be a little bit shorter than half of the fabric width (for hem allowances), so please pay attention to the width of the fabric. The fabric that I use is 120 cm wide.
• The length of my fabric is 1 m, I think this will be suitable for almost everyone.

A pair of fabric strips, each as long as your skirt fabric.

• My strips are about 3.5 cm wide each. You can make it wider or narrower.
• I leave the raw edges shown, but of course you can add seam allowances to make a neat folded edge.

Instructions:

1. Cut the fabric in half, resulting in two long rectangles.
2. Sew the short ends of rectangles together to make a tube shape.
3. Sew short ends of fabric strips together, resulting in another tube.
4. Mark placement of strips on skirt, about 5-6 cm from the top.
5. Sew strips on skirt, matching the side seams together. Leave a small part unstitched for putting in the elastic.
6. Measure your waist and cut the elastic. Don’t cut too short, you can always cut later if it’s too big.
7. Put the elastic inside the fabric strips. When the fit is okay, sew the ends of elastic together. I usually overlap the ends of the elastic then sew over it several times using small zigzag stich.
8. Sew the opening of fabric strips closed.
9. Hem the bottom of skirt. You can also sew a pair of ribbon loop on the sides for hanging the skirt, like I did.
10. Put on your new skirt! \(^.^)/

Some ideas:

• Instead of fabric strips, you can use wide ribbon. How about some pretty velvet ribbon?
• Use twice as much fabric to make a long skirt.
• Layer several transparent fabrics together (lace, chiffon) for a romantic look.

Click to download:
Easy full skirt tutorial (327)

Have you made something from my tutorials? Join my flickr group to share!