11: The Making of a Road Trip Skirt

Oh yeah: Skirt #11 is bitchin'. It's my Route 66 skirt, and I'm going to take you through how to make it. At great and boring length. Grab a cocktail, sit back, and enjoy the show.

First, wash and dry the fabric, then iron it before cutting it out. Trust me on the ironing.

Using the pattern I made from the Sew What? Skirts! book, I cut out two sides of a straight skirt. I cut on the fold. That way you know both the sides have the same little angle at the hip.



Here it is, about to be cut on the fold.

Some people pin their pattern to the fabric, but I find that just weighing it down with something heavy is much easier.

Also, you'll see a strange diagonal bit above the waistline. That's the facing. Instead of cutting out a separate piece of fabric for the facing, I made a pattern that includes the facing - it ends up being a little flap over the waistband. The "facing" will actually be on the inside of your skirt. It faces your skin.

Smooth out the fabric, weigh it down, smooth it out one more time, and start to cut.
Use shears that are specifically for cutting fabric. They're sharp as hell and they work better than your kitchen scissors will. Also, make sure no one uses them for anything except fabric. You have my permission to be a Nazi about this.

And about the cleanliness and accessibility of your sewing machine. C is, as we speak, downstairs reformatting the basement to accommodate sewing, encaustic painting, and watercolor painting. Ain't he a pip?
I forget exactly why I took this picture. Oh! I wanted to point out to you where the facing ends and the waistline/skirt begins. See where the fabric is in an inverted V? That's where. This will be important for the next step. WAKE UP, YOU. There will be a quiz.

I sew a line at the top of the waist, so that my facing will flop down over one side and the skirt on the other. I do this because I like knowing where the waist will be. Also, doing this means I can immediately sew the side seams and hem it.





You're not sewing anythin to anything else, here. You're just sewing a line on the fabric, marking where your waistband will be.

Flip the facing over so that it's now on the inside of the skirt. This is how it should look (both now and when you finish your skirt).

God, I love that fabric. I've got the song "Route 66" stuck in my head now, though. Kingston, Barstow, San Bernadino! Won't yooooou--get hip to this kind of trip? Etc. etc. We are jumping at the woodside now, tell you what.

Oh! Right, directions. Turn the skirt pieces so that the outside of the fabric faces in. I always mess this up, so pin it and then turn it around and see if it makes sense. If it doesn't, girl, regroup. By this stage, you should be able to see how the skirt will look when it's done, more or less.

Then sew the side seams, leaving room for a 7-9" zipper (or whatever size zipper I bought). If I'm sewing little side slits, I'll leave room for those too, plus an inch or so for the hem. The more I sew, the narrower my hems get.
One thing: These hems will fray. You can get a pair of pinking shears and pink 'em up; there's a stitch called a blanket-weave stitch you can use; or you can just let them fray and deal. It comes down to this: how Martha are you? My response: Not very, so I leave them and deal.

Before you sew the side seam on the left side, make sure you pin the zipper in place (one pin will do it for now) so that you know where to stop sewing the side seam.

Next, iron the hem, then sew it. Soooo much easier than pinning. You don't want fraying here, so fold the cloth over once, then fold it over again on itself. Iron it into place and then sew it. Easy as hell.

Here's the first fold:
Then I made a second fold and am holding it down before I iron it.

Voila: all ready to sew, and I didn't have to touch a pin. I hate pins. Pins BLOW.

Here's the finished hem. Another benefit of ironing it is that you can make sure it's even all the way around.

See there? All nice and squared off. I know: men want me, and women want to be me. It's a good life.
While you're at it, open up them side seams with the iron. Your skirt will lay flatter if you do. But really, you're just putting off the next step: sewing the zipper. (Lightning should flash outside as you read this.)
One last look at the hem, the last peaceful part of this whole goat rodeo:

OK, now take a couple deep breaths and a sip or two of wine. Pin the zipper in place. More wine. You'll need to be fortified for the rigors that lie ahead.

Also, you'll want to pin the facings out of the way. Oooh, check it out: the bull is pissed off. I would be too, if someone was about to sew over my snout.


Make sure the "outside" of the zipper faces the outside of your skirt, and the top of the zipper is at the top of the skirt. You'd be amazed how many zippers it took for me to learn to do this.
Next, find the seam you so obligingly ironed open just a few minutes ago. Remember that? When life was good? Well, you're going to want to sew that zipper along the same line, so that there's a little strip of room for the zipper itself, but it disappears otherwise.
Then sew it in, following directions in that Sew What book (or whatever you can find online). But first, make sure the zipper is facing the right way. I know I said this before. It bears doing twice, obviously, because the way I've got it below? That's the wrong way.
THIS is the right way.

In this photo, I'm checking out my first zipper seam. The shot's blurry because my hands are shaking from too much adrenalin. Can you get PTSD from putting in a zipper? Because I think I have it.

A slightly clearer view. The damn thing's actually attached to the skirt on one side. Will miracles never cease?

I mean, OK, it's not perfect. I'll never win an award for this cockeyed little piece of engineering, but you know, it's enough to keep my skirt on, and thanks to those seams I ironed and the fact that my thread matches the skirt fabric, no one will really ever be able to tell what a mess it is.

Truly, it pays to be kind of eye-rolly when it comes to tiny things like stitches. When's the last time you noticed the stitching on someone's zipper? You perv, you.

Here I am attempting the other side. This occasioned much more swearing, but I got through it eventually.

It ain't pretty, but that fucker ain't moving.

Once the zipper is sewn into place, take the skirt to the ironing board. Iron the facing down - paying particular attention to the area around the zipper, which you want to be as neat as possible; you also want to hide the top of the zipper from view. It should already be between the facing and the skirt itself, so it's really just a matter of paying attention.

And then sew the facing about half an inch from the top of the waistline, then about an inch from the bottom of the facing, in a straight line. It's mostly to help the facing lay flat, which will matter more after you wash it for the first time than it does right now.

This will show on the front and back of the skirt,so it's important to sew a straight line rather than following the dip of the facing--unless you want a little V in the front of your skirt, which come to think of it could be slimming. Hmm.

Here's the skirt, turned inside out. I think I'm about to pin two darts in the back here, because I've got the top side seams turned in approximately the same few inches.

Yep, that pin marks the top of a small dart. Darts help shape the waist so that if you're curvy, like me, you don't have a bunch of loose fabric at the waist. Instead, you have a nice smooth skirt that fits your waist and your hips.

There's the dart, sewn in from the top of the waist (this picture is canted to the left)about two inches down the facing. It's double-sewn because it'll carry some tension, and I don't want it springing free.

I didn't do this, but you can now add any trim or lining you like. If your seams are a little wonky at your hem, get a great ribbon and some matching thread and go to town.

And the last thing to do is to iron it. Yes, iron your skirt. I know, I know, it's like I'm being funded by the Iron Council of America. All I can say is, whatever craziness I inserted in sewing my skirt, I can usually downplay or eliminate entirely with a good ironing.

So! There you have it. Making this skirt took me two hours, including the time it took to take 88 photographs (not nearly all of which made their way into this post. You're welcome). Without the photographs, I think it would have taken me about 75 minutes. Not bad for a cute little above-the-knee that I can wear with boots and a brown turtleneck.