I had a lot of fun making my galaxy skirt, and I've gotten quite a lot of use out it, so I decided to make a skirt using similar design. I modified based on what I learned from the first one. I learned that I did not like having only one pocket; there was not enough room and my skirt kept pulling to one side. I discovered how to add a pocket to a side seam with a zipper, but that was still an overly complicated process, and I wanted an easy win with this project. I decided to do a back-zipper with two side seams, each with an in-seam pocket, and a waistband for the simplest skirt that would do what I wanted.
I purchased 2 yards of this fabulous rainbow lightning print; it's around 45inches wide, and I'm going to round that down to 44 inches for math purposed in a minute. The first thing I did was to cut out 4 pocket halves (that makes 2 pockets), and one waist band at about 3 inches by 44 inches. That left me with about 44 inches x1 3/4 yards to make up the actual skirt.
Now cut the main fabric in half hot dog style - one of those will be your front panels. The other one will get cut in half hamburger style to be the two back panels.
Sorry that the proportions aren't exact, but Paint doesn't come with gridlines for drawing. You can also manipulate the proportions based on your measurements and how much fabric you have.
Looking at this diagram, from left to right and top to bottom: the blue blobs are the pockets, the thick red line represents the waistband, the top rectangle is the front of the skirt, and the two smaller rectangles are the back panels of the skirt. This is on fabric that is NOT folded. I wrote "Front" upside down to indicate that the top of the front panel was coming from the center fold, so that the bottom was on the selvedge - as are the bottoms of the back panels. That's not an accident - I wanted to be able to use the selvedges to make hemming easier, meanwhile the cut along the center fold would be added into the waistband. Granted, this won't always work for directional prints. Some are going to require a different arrangement, and you'll have to work with those as they come, but for this particular design, half of 45 inches (or whatever my starting width was) made for a decent length for me, and the pattern could be worked in pretty much any direction.
Putting this together was very similar to the Galaxy Skirt. I had an invisible zipper this time around, instead of a regular one, and 2 pockets instead of 1, but the general process was about the same.
Sew the straight edges of the pockets to the tops of the skirt pieces, and then sew the side seams together, stitching around the pockets.
Sew the invisible zipper in place on each of the back panels.
Stitch down the back center seam.
Hem the bottom by folding under at least 5/8 inches and stitching into place.
Measure the desired length of the waistband, and fold in quarters then mark with pins for the Center Front, Sides, and Center Back with right side to right side.
Match the Center Front, Sides, and Center Back on the waistband with the skirt.
Pleat the skirt by marking halves between those pins and folding them over so that you get even pleats. Baste everything down, fix any mistakes, and then stitch it down.
Fold the waistband over to the back, fold under the seam allowance, and hand stich it into place without stitching through to the front of the skirt.
Add a skirt hook and eye to the waistband for extra security.
Voila! Skirt is done! Take a swirl in that sucker!
Challenge: n/a
Material: Cotton - 2 yards
Pattern: My own
Year: 2021
Notions: Thread, Invisible Zipper
How historically accurate is it? n/a
Hours to Complete: 5 hours
First Worn: Work
Total Cost: $10 Fabric + Zipper and Thread from stash + tax about $11