The Wrap Skirt

I finally got a picture of the wrap skirt that I made from a pattern from Craft Magazine. I've worn it a few times and I'm very pleased with the fit.

The rest of this lengthy post is my account on how this skirt came together. This was quite a learning process for me and I'm hoping that my experience will help anyone else out there that is going to make this skirt. So, unless you are going to try this pattern, you might not want to go on, it's quite wordy!

Here's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The pattern comes as a PDF file with two download choices. I opted for the 49 page tiled version. The number of pages was a bit over whelming! But once they were printed, I realized that they were all the pieces for both the beginning and the advanced pattern. I only needed to work with the pages for the beginning pattern. I began by laying all the pages on the living room floor and pieced them together. Once they were lined up correctly, I carefully taped them and cut them out.

The next hurdle was figuring out how to enlarge the pattern to fit my waist. I followed the instructions given and had the measurement needed, but how was I going to enlarge the pattern? What I ended up doing was cutting the pattern pieces along the adjust for width line. Then, placing paper behind the pieces, I measured the space between to equal the measurement I needed to enlarge it to and taped it in place. Continuing along the length of the pattern on both pattern pieces.

When I measured the finished pieces, they came out to the exact measurement that I wanted the finished skirt to be. I decided that I would trace the pattern, cut an extra seam allowance and sew directly on the line I traced.

The instructions aren't very clear on how to cut the pieces out of the fabric. I'm used to having the fabric folded in half and placing the pieces on that way. But the pattern pieces for this skirt are very large and didn't fit on the folded fabric. I laid the fabric out flat and started to arrange the pattern pieces, making sure that the grain lines matched the grain of the fabric and then traced them with a water soluble fabric pen.

Here is where I came into a bit of trouble. I needed to cut out mirror images of each piece. This happens automatically when you cut out of folded fabric, but since I had laid the fabric out flat, I needed to cut one facing up and one facing down. This didn't occur to me until after I had cut the pieces out and started sewing. Luckily I had given myself a large seam allowance and was able to retrace them.

WHEW! That was a lot to say!

From here, things got much easier. I just followed the instructions and it all came together pretty fast.

After all that work, I now have a pattern for a skirt that fits me perfectly! Next time, I will go with the button closure instead of the ties though.

Also, if anyone who has made this skirt has tips for doing this a better way, I'd love to hear them!