Ribbing Skirt

I have lots of travel out of town this month for work (including this past week) so that means two things....all of the clothes that I'm making myself right now need to be 1) comfortable and 2) quick and easy to make.

Which brings me to a skirt I whipped up before I headed out for meetings earlier this week:

Those shoes look beautiful on
but they are killers on the feet~

Believe it or not, I've had this fabric in my stash for at least 10 years!!!!!  Time to put it to use~

Here's what you need to create your own skirt in not time flat.

Materials:
-Stretch material (mine is some sort of sweater type ribbing maybe?)
-thread, elastic, standard sewing kit

Steps:
1) As I mentioned above, my fabric may be some sort of ribbing.  I'm really not sure but it's extremely narrow which is often how ribbing comes.  So, to start, I simply cut two piece the approximate length that I wanted my skirt to be plus the hem length and another half inch or so.  I really just eyeballed it.

2) I have fairly narrow hips so this fabric, once opened up, was exactly the width I needed for one front and one back.  If you're a bit more curvy you might want to piece together your back piece or you may need to have a seam in the front.

3) I knew I wanted a sort of sassy school teacher vibe so I sewed up the seam along one side and then left a bit open on the other for a slit.  Even though the fabric is stretchy, this also makes it just a bit easier to walk in.

4) Serge or finish all of the sewed edges except for the bottom.

5) Now cut a piece of your wide elastic to fit around your waist and sew the ends together, making a circle.

6) Mark your elastic as well as the top of your skirt in quarter or eigths, whatever you're most comfortable with.

7) Match up all of your marks and secure your elastic onto your fabric.  There are several ways you can do this but if you want everything to lay as flat as possible simply place your elastic on the outside of your waist edge and pin about 1/4" down, stretching everything as you sew.

8) If your fabric is anything like mine serging will stretch it out and create a lettuce edge effect.  Sometimes this is a fun embellishment but not something I wanted for this project.  For the bottom edge, I zigzagged it and then just applied loads of steam to get it to lay flat.  Then just measure up your hem and sew down as you normally would.

Zigzagged and steamed,
but not hemmed yet.

That's it!  In about an hour or less you'll have a brand new skirt....and once less chunk of fabric in your stash closet.

I wore this to a meeting on Wednesday and got lots of nice compliments, and only one person who had the urge to touch it to feel how soft it is (female, thank goodness).

I sewed up a storm last week and can't wait to show you my other sassy schoolteacher outfits next week.

What's your fall style, trend, or colour that you're picking up on?  Leave a comment below~