Maxi skirt making..

So I've FINALLY completed my maxi skirt, and I'm going to put a bit of a step by step guide on here to recap on what i did! I reckon the overall skirt turned out quite well :) so here how i did it..

Firstly we had to cut out the patterns, this was quite tricky as we learnt a fair few new things we haven't done before in any of the other patterns, like adding length to the skirt for instance to make it a maxi.

We did this by tracing out our blocks onto a sheet of plain white patterning paper, and then we measured from our waist to our feet and added that length in cm onto the bottom of our skirt patterns. We also learnt how to add a waistband.

We did this by firstly deciding how thick we wanted it to be and i chose around 3 cm, we had to make sure it matched the length of our skirts around the top and then we also added a button stand onto the end and put a 1.5 seam allowance around it,

We also learnt how to add extra flare to the skirt. We did this by extending from the hip line to the bottom of the skirt on the front and the back piece by 2.5 cm,

1. Firstly, I cut out all my pattern pieces from my piece of fabric, BUT, this maxi is cut on the bias, which basically means its cut against the grain and diagonal rather than straight. We had to lay out our material and then fold it diagonally and lay out our patterns and cut them out.

2. I over locked the sides of the front and back part of the maxi and put the zip onto the left side, i then sewed each side together with a 1.5 seam allowance, over locked the seam allowance and then over locked all along the bottom of the skirt.

3. I then turned the hem up, I had quite a bit of trouble with this as it was very fiddly! I had to turn the skirt inside out and then iron only the over locking upwards, this was what I found difficult as it was so fiddley and you had to be very accurate, I then had to turn it up again and iron that down. You have to make sure you get it as even as possible so that when you sew it you don't miss any of the hem. You ahve to make sure you don't turn the hem up too much as because the maxi skirt is cut on the bias, its a more rounder shape rather than a straighter shape therefore it won't sit right if you turn up the hem too much and sits and looks a lot better and doesn't lose too much length is you only turn up the over locking.

4. You then need to sew along the hem as close as you can to the edge so that your sewing through the over locking, this is tricky and it took me a few goes to do this, and even though i had sewn my line straight all the way around the skirt, it had still gone off a bit as my ironing wasn't perfect, but it still looked okay.

                                                                                hem

5. Now i had to do the waistband, this was very complicated but i found it easier to do than the hem. You have to get your waistband you cut out and faced, and fold down 1.5cm all the way along and iron it.

     waistband

                                                                  front of waistband pinned

top stitching of waistband

6. I then had to find the middle of the waistband, the middle of the skirt and then the 'middle of the middle' as I said to help remember it! I pinned it to the top of my skirt and topstitched it on. I then had to stitch very neatly along the waistband very slowly.

7. Then I had to do the button hole using the memory craft machine like i did last time, I picked out a dark button to use and the memory craft created a button hole, I then stitched the button and and i was done!