How to sew a simple skirt (english)

This is a copy of my guide on how to sew a very simple skirt that I´ve written before in Swedish. Now here you have it in english, the perfect beginner project :) Good luck! (If your looking for the Swedish one- here it is)

I´m going to show you how to sew this skirt in two layers, one outer and one lining, but you could as well do your skirt in one layer if you want.

How to do it, short version:
- Sew fabric(s) together to form a tunnel(s)
- Sew together these tunnels, right sides facing each other
- Sew on an elastic ribbon with a zigzag seam
- Fold down and sew down the elastic with a straight seam
- Hem your skirt
- Done!

And now for the longer version with pictures:

1. What you need:
- One or two pieces of fabric, full width. The fuller the width the fuller the skirt will be. You want your piece of fabric to be equal to the length you want your skirt plus an extra 5-10 cm/2-4 inches.
- An elastic ribbon. To decide what length you need you can take your elastic, hold it around where you want your skirt to start and hold it as tight as you want it to be. Then measure this length.
- Matching thread and some needles.
- A sewing machine and an iron (to make it look prettier when done)

 2. Zigzag all your edges and run your iron over it to make it free from wrinkles. You know what they say- good preparations make a good result.

3. Sew your fabrics together with right sides facing each other so that they form two tubes. I used 1 cm/0,4 inch seam allowance. Press open your seams!

 4. (Jump to step 7 if your sewing the skirt with only one fabric)
Put your two tubes together with their wrong side facing each other. Make sure to line up the seams for a good looking result.

 5. Pin them together in the area that is going to be the upper part of the skirt (right now both parts look the same so it doesnt really matter which one you choose).

 6. Sew them togheter using a 1 cm/0,4 inch seam (or whatever seam allowance you prefer). Now you will have a neat looking inside and outside :)

 7. Sew your elastic together to form a circle.

8. Pin your elastic to your skirt on the inside of your skirt, a little bit down from the edge. The seam in your elastic should face the seam in the skirt.


Tip- another way to do it! If you want the elastic to be visible on the outside, pin it instead on the outside of the skirt, sew it near to your upper edge and then fold it up. This way the seam won´t show on the outside. If you do this- skip step 12.

 9. I have a little trick to make your fabric evenly distributed along the elastic. Hold your elastic so that two layers are facing each other as one length. That make half the length of the elastic, put a pin there. Then fold so that the pin is facing your elastic seam and put a pin there- that makes 1/4. If you continue doing this you have 1/8, 1/16 and so on. Do the same for the skirt. This way you don´t have to measure anything. To split it into 1/8 was enougth for me for this skirt.

10. Now that you have a needle for every 1/8 of your skirt and your elastic- just line up the needle on your elastic with the needle on the skirt. You will have more length on the skirt than on your elastic, that´s the way it should be to make a ruffled skirt, but you´ll see that soon enough.

 11. Sew a zigzag seam in the upper part of the elastic, the one facing the edge of your skirt. When your sewing make sure to stretch your elastic so that the elastic and the fabric are lying even against each other. Stretch it by holding on to the fabric behind the sewing machine (the last pin) with one hand and your next pin with the other. This way you always get the right stretch. When you stop to go on to the next pin, make sure that the needle of your sewing machine always is in the fabric, or else your might end up moving your work around.

12. When you have sewn all around you will see that you now have a nicely ruffled skirt. Now fold over the edge so that your elastic is on the inside between the layers of fabric. Now sew a straight seam on top of your earlier straight seam (step 6). Make sure you stretch out the fabric and the elastic as you go so you keep the elasticity in your elastic band, just like when you zigzaged it. This time you don´t need any guides, just make sure the fabric is flat when your sewing the elastic.

 13. Now your skirt is almost finished! This is what it looks like on the inside.

 14. And this is what it looks like on the outside.

15. Hem your skirt. If you, as I did, have two layers where one is seethrough, you can create an effect by letting your inner skirt or lining be shorter than the outer skirt.

I realised that with my organza outer fabric I didn´t need to hem my outer skirt, the zigzag made a nice finish. Test yourself and see what you like.

16. You are done! Admire your work and feel proud that you did something as pretty!

This is what the zigzag looked on my organza.