The Finished Skirt

Just for you, Samina! The skirt is finished, and was super comfy to wear on my recent vacation – no, no photos – sorry! I didn’t bring my camera, and I don’t think to take them with my phone.

^{It has pockets of course…}

But here it is, finished. It’s that same ol’ Kwik Sew 3877. But wait, that’s not an elastic waist pattern you say? You are correct. I converted it to an elasticized waist, and very easily too. The first thing is to make sure your pattern has a waist band, so you have someplace to put the elastic.

^{It is hard to see, but I topstitched in the ditch}

Then, leave the darts out; make up a muslin or baste your skirt together, and make sure you can get it over the widest part of your body – for me, the hips. Extend your waistband to match the new waistline circumference, then instead of sewing in a zipper, just sew up all the seams. If your waist isn’t smaller (or smaller enough) than your hips to pull it up, you’ll need to add some width. You can probably do it at either the center front or back, or at the sides – or a little bit all over, I don’t think it matters much where for most people.

Getting the length of the elastic can be a bit tricky; my skirt was a bit loose so I shortened the elastic by an inch and half when I got home. It stayed up fine before that, I just couldn’t put anything heavy in my pockets or it would get dragged down.

The hem inside and out

The waistband inside

I used the serger to finish all the edges, then topstitched the waistband on my sewing machine, and did a blind hem which disappears beautifully in this scuba knit. It was a roll end I got from Mr. Halpern a couple of years ago, so no longer available I’m afraid.

See you here next time and happy sewing!