Actually I made two, but I only like one. Gawd, am I going to become one of those homely chicks who hand-makes all her clothes?

I saw this tutorial on Extra Petite and tried my hand at my first clothing sewing project. A basic elastic skirt. It was pretty simple and didn’t take too long. Let’s ignore the fact that for my first attempt (the navy skirt), I accidentally sewed shut the entire opening of the skirt (i.e. the place where your waist goes)… how do I even do stuff like that. I don’t know.

Anyway, I think the real difficulties lie in: 1) choosing the right fabric, and 2) coming up with the correct measurements to fit your body. For my first attempt (navy), I went with a thicker cotton– it was a bit stiff and had just the slightest bit of sheen to it– and I cut my panels to 23″x23″ (FYI, I am 5’5″ and 25″ waist). The skirt ended up being too stiff, wide, and long (the pictures below are not scaled to each other– the chambray is slightly smaller than the navy in real life). For my second attempt, I used a lightweight chambray and cut down the panels to 19.5″x21.5″– significantly smaller.

The navy skirt is wearable but not ideal in terms of fit. I hemmed it up a ton in terms of length, but the fabric’s stiffness and the gradual widening of the skirt is a bit unflattering, though technically it’s supposed to be an A-line. The chambray fits a lot better– the fabric is obvi slouchier and cutting down the width helped with the bulkiness. It’s kinda lost the A-line-ness, but I’d say it’s somewhere between a flouncy A-line and a pencil skirt.

All materials from Joann’s, with coupons–

Skirt 1 (navy):
-1 yard of 1″ elastic ($1.69)
-1 yard fabric ($9.99 + 40% off coupon)= $6.54
-(I already had matching thread)
TOTAL with tax: $8.37

Skirt 2 (chambray):
-1 yard of 1″ elastic ($2.29 + 50% off coupon)= $1.24
-1 yard lightweight chambray ($12.99 + 50% off coupon)= $7.08
-matching thread, which I ended up not even using b/c I was too lazy to change out the thread in my machine -_- ($2.79)
TOTAL with tax: $11.36

Shirt: 2020AVE
Woven belt: Anthropologie
Leather boots: Tahari

Not bad– skirts for ~$10 each. I’ll probably try again with another type of fabric (sticking with the lightweight stuff) and possibly add an inch or two to the width to give back some of the A-line-ness. Also, I omitted pockets for these skirts, but they are easily addable (per the tutorial).

Gonna start pairing this chambray skirt with boots, tights, and sweaters because IT’S AUTUMN, BEYOTCHES!

PS- Homely chicks unite. H8ers gon’ h8.