Ruche Fabrics Blog

"Water Islands" Winter Skirt

Our daughter Ebony turned 14 last Saturday and as usual, she falls in love with just about all the fabrics in our shop.  One of her favourites is a new fabric called "Water Islands" which is an Italian winter wool blend.

So birthdays have suddenly become easy.  I've made her a skirt!  Its so simple and doesn't require a pattern.  For the record, I'm not that clever.  I do get some of these idea's from clothes I have bought over the years.

It takes 50cm of fabric, a 10cm metal zip or any zip for that matter, and I used a bit of piping to add a dimension to it.  Last but not least a fabulous buckle to finish it off and hold the zip closed.  Zips can sometimes have a habit of sneaking open when under pressure.

Step 1: Fold the fabric over - selvage to selvage.  This fabric had a nice selvage I could leave exposed.  I overlocked top and bottom edges.

Step 2: Working from fold (which will be the centre back of the skirt, I created 4 darts.  2 darts to define the "side seams" and 2 darts between them to make the back of the skirt sit right as a normal skirt would.  I had to work out the measurements to place the side darts.

Step 3: Lining it up with our tape measure area on counter, I folded the front flaps in using the 2 side darts as a guide for the sides.  This should then sit to roughly the right waist measurement.  I angled it slightly so that the zip and stitching down the front was not straight but tapering out to create a slight A-line affect.  The darts are on the inside so skirt is right side out as you would wear it.

Step 4: Next I laid the zip down to mark where I start a seam to sew the two front flaps together.  I sewed down to about 4 or 5 inches above hem line, on a slight angle.

Step 5: Double fold the top and bottom edges of skirt adding choc brown piping with it.  This neatened the edges that fell at front of skirt.  I stopped the piping for back edge between the darts as the fabric was so thick and just turned it over once rather than doubled, as it is unseen.

Stitch zip in working on right side, with seam allowances tucked under already.  I added a buckle at the top of the zip to do 2 things.  One was to give it a finishing touch, second to secure the zip from undoing itself at a most inconvenient moment.