Jersey Pencil Skirt Tutorial

  

I am so excited to share my first ever blog post on how to sew this fast and easy skirt!

First I would like to recognize and give a special thanks to my dearest friend Elizabeth for helping me get this blog set up and looking pretty! Check her crafty blog out here (ElizabethAve) for lots of sewing tutorials and crafts!

I would also like to recognize and thank my dad for taking the photos used for this blog post and surprisingly no ankles were broken while jumping off rocks during this photo shoot.

Materials:

Mid to Heavy weight knit fabric – 3/4 yard (mine's from Jo-Ann Fabric)

2 inch wide elastic – your waist measurement + 1 inch

matching thread

basic sewing supplies/machine

nice fitting stretch pencil skirt (to use as pattern)

pattern paper (I used wrapping paper with the grid lines on the back)

Fabric: The fabric I used was a heavy knit stretch fabric and was easy to work with, I wouldn't recommend light weight knits or knits with a lot of drape for this type of skirt. 

1. Making your pencil skirt pattern

First I laid a nice fitting pencil skirt folded lengthwise on my grid lined wrapping paper.  Put the middle of the skirt aligned with the edge of your paper and then trace around the skirt with a pencil. 

Because the knit stretches more than the skirt I was using, you need to remove some width from the pattern you’ve made. If you choose not to do this, you will end up with a looser fitting skirt.

Now to decide how much to remove…

If you remove 1/2 inch from the outer curve of the pattern piece, you will end up with a slim pencil skirt that is still a bit loose fitting. If you want a skirt that fits slimmer, like the one I am wearing in the pictures in this post, you will need to remove about 1 inch from the outer curve.

To achieve a more dramatic pencil skirt shape, I also eased the curve in even more from the hip to the legs (pictured below).

2. Cutting out your skirt from your skirt pattern

Now that your pattern piece is ready. Cut two identical skirt pieces on the fold.

3. Sew the skirt pieces together 

With right sides facing, sew the two skirt pieces together at the sides with a 1/2 inch seam allowance. Next use a zigzag stitch along the raw edge, for a finished edge.

4. Sew elastic waistband

Cut a piece of 2 inch elastic about 1 inch longer than the width of the waist of the sewn skirt.

Over lap the ends of the elastic about 1 inch, creating a loop. With a wide zigzag stitch, sew the overlapping ends together. 

Matching up and pin the elastic waistband to the skirt. Make sure the skirt is right sides out and the elastic band is pinned around the outside of the waist. 

Sew the elastic waistband to the skirt with a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Now that the waistband is sewn to the skirt, flip it up. Then, flip it down again into the inside of the skirt.

Stitch in the seam (also called stitching in the ditch) to secure the waistband and to keep it from flipping up.

  

5. Hem the skirt. 

Try the skirt on and make sure it is the length you want.

fold the bottom edge under 1/2 inch and then again another 1/2 inch, then top stitch in place.

I hope you enjoyed this first blog post and thanks for reading, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to write them below!