Skirt - 3rd time's the charm

I apologize for allowing so much time to pass since my last post. In the week before spring break I have been overwhelmed with tests and papers. But now spring break has begun and I can spend time on important stuff such as making a few shirts for myself and writing blog entries.
My apparel construction class has begun work on pants; our skirts were finished a week ago. It took me three attempts to make a skirt, but I am quite pleased with the finished product. There were problems with the seam finishes on my first skirt. I could have torn out the stitching, but I had enough fabric and time to start over. Skirt number two was going well, but at some point between one class and the next the fabric got stretched. Where the skirt used to hug the mannequin’s curves nicely it now has an unsightly bulge. I tried to steam it out, but I could not shrink the fabric enough. I was not happy about this, but I wanted a good grade so I started my third skirt.
I chose a different fabric for the third skirt in hopes of avoiding another unfortunate stretching incident. The first two skirts were a cotton/rayon blend. The skirt was made for a mannequin, not a person, so I did not care if it is dry-clean only. I chose the fabric for its print, weight, and price. I used 100% cotton denim for my third skirt. I wanted a fabric I could trust.

I learned the pattern’s idiosyncrasies on skirts one and two, so skirt number three was easy. The only bit I found at all troublesome was the hem. I was required to hand stitch the hem, and I had no hand stitching experience. I now know how to hem a skirt without the aid of modern technology. I do not like hand stitching, and I do not intend to use it too often, but it is always good to learn new skills.


I got an A for the skirt. My instructor pointed out that the side seams do not line up perfectly with the line of my model’s legs, but it was close. She acknowledged that it is easier to get a close fit on real people, so I did not lose any points for that. I was a little upset that she did not have any comments about my seam finishes. There was no requirement for a specific type of seam finish as long as there were no exposed unfinished edges. The rest of the class used sergers to finish their seams. I do not like the look of serged seam finishes, so I made flat felled seams. It is my favorite seam and the most appropriate one for denim.

I considered making a skirt for myself instead of for the mannequin. It would have been fun to wear a skirt in class for the final fitting, but I decided it would be better to make one for a woman’s body. I do not have curves in the right places. There is not much demand for men’s skirts, so I thought it would be wise to learn to learn women’s skirts first.

Fitting a skirt

My apparel design class began work on our skirts last week. We are not doing this to learn how to make skirts, although that is a nice skill to have. We are making skirts in order to learn how to adjust a pattern to fit a real person. Anyone who has worked with a commercial pattern knows that pattern sizes and ready-to-wear sizes have little in common, and that without some alteration the finished garment will not fit perfectly. But how do we make these alterations?

I am going to school to become a designer; my goal is to design garments instead of using someone else’s designs. I will take a pattern drafting class next semester, but I must first learn how to construct garments and how to ensure that they fit properly.

The first step was for everyone in class to be accurately measured. The purpose of that day’s class was for us to learn how to take measurements, but it also proved to be a camaraderie building experience. Convenient as it might be to take these measurements in our skivvies, modesty won out and we wore t-shirts and shorts.

Step two was purchasing a pattern. The women in class will make skirts for themselves, and the men will make them for a mannequin. My pattern size was determined by the mannequin’s hip and waist measurements. Fortunately the mannequin’s shape is similar to that of the ideal woman for whom patterns are designed, so I did not have too many alterations to make. Some of the women in class who are curvier than mannequins need to make some large alterations. I may have those issues with the pants and shirt. I chose the simplest skirt pattern I could find. I do not want complicated construction details to distract me from the alteration details which are difficult enough.

We used our body measurements to determine what adjustments to make to the pattern, but before we started altering the patterns we had to learn how to do so. We used half scale paper skirt patterns to see how various adjustments are made.

After a long and often confusing lesson, I now have a basic understanding of how to alter skirt patterns to fit different hip and waist sizes. I do not yet feel comfortable doing it without consulting my textbook at every step, but it is a good start. I make alterations to similar paper patterns at the start of my pants and shirt projects too, but this is just an intro to fit and alterations. I will learn a lot more about it next semester in the pattern development class.

I made a few small changes to my pattern, then used it to make a muslin. I put the muslin on the mannequin and discovered I needed to make a few more alterations. I took in the side seams ¼” at the waist and 1/8” at the hips. I let out and shortened the darts. I put the altered muslin on the mannequin before cutting my fashion fabric. The new side seams were good, but I decided to go back to the original darts.


I pressed the muslin before I used it to evaluate fit, but I did not have a camera with me at the time. Today I had a camera but neither the time nor inclination to press the muslin. My time was better spent attaching the zipper to my fashion fabric. I will write something about that in a day or two.