Okay, it's 1:45 am and I'm just took wound up to sleep. I finished the patchwork skirt that I talked about in yesterday's post. I went to Walmart tonight and bought the fabric and whipped it up in under 2 hours. Here's how I went about figuring out how to build it. First of all, I bought 1 yard of 3 print fabrics and 1 yard of a solid blue fabric, and a grossgrain ribbon to match the fabrics. I hope these instructions make sense!!

First of all, I needed to figure out how big to make each of the panels. I had decided to make the skirt a 6 panelled skirt. So I took my waist measurement and then added 1/2 of my waist measurement to my waist measurement (this allows the skirt to gather). In my case my waist was 40 inches and half of that was 20. So the total amount was 60 inches. I divided that number by 6, so I knew that each of the 6 panels would need to be 10 inches. To that number I added 1 inch for the 1/2 inch seam allowance on either side. I used a 1/2 inch seam allowance through out.

Each of the 6 panels were 11 inches wide and I decided on a length for 29 inches. I cut 2 - 11Wx29H inch panels out of each of the 3 print fabrics (BTW, 1 yard of print fabric allowed me to actually cut out 4 panels so I could actually make 2 skirts, but you would need to buy more of the solid fabric than 1 yard to make 2)

Then out of the solid fabric for the bottom of the skirt, I cut 2 - 31Wx14H panels.

Okay, all of the pieces are cut out, time to assemble the skirt. The first step is to sew together all the 11x29 inch print fabric panels along the 29 inch sides....



I sewed together all 6 of the panels and then I sewed together the 2 - 31x14 inch panels for the bottom of the skirt along the 14 inch sides....



Okay, the next step is to sew the solid color panel to the print panel...



The next step was to sew a seam in the top of the skirt, allowing for room for the elastic. I used a 1/2 inch elastic.



My next step was to feed the elastic through the seam at the top.



Then I tacked down the elastic on either side of the top of the skirt



Now I sewed on the grossgrain ribbon over the seam between the print panels and solid panel.



Now, I sewed the side seam to form the skirt (like a tube)



I pressed the seam I just made open



The final step was to put in a rolled hem at the bottom of the skirt.



And here it is all finished!



I'll try to post a better picture of the finished project tomorrow. I hope this little tutorial makes sense to everyone! This may not be the "proper" way to assemble this skirt, but it workded for me!!