Adventures of a Wayfarer: Full Circle Wrap Skirt

I think everyone has one: that piece of clothing that you've had for years and keep wearing because it's just so nice and comfy. For me, that was a black skirt that I've had... well, I can't even remember when I got it, that's how long I've had it. I can distinctly remember wearing it at theatre camp in the summer of 2006, so I've had it at least 11 years, but probably quite a few more. Let's just say it's getting pretty worn out. Finally this winter it was time... time to replace the skirt.

In order to be a suitable replacement, a skirt would have to be comfortable and all-purpose, able to survive anything from a day running around with the kids to hiking a mountain, as well as making me feel pretty and being nice enough to wear to church. That's a pretty high standard!

I didn't have much hope of ever finding such a skirt by chance, so I decided to try making one. After some Pinterest research, I settled on this tutorial.

The next challenge was finding fabric, since fabric isn't cheap, and I was going to need a lot. Thrift stores often have fabric, but rarely in a large enough quantity. I ended up going to check out a local fabric store, and it turned out that they were having a sale that day and their clearance fabric was 50% off! I found some that I liked, and although it only had 3.5 metres left, I figured I could make that work. (I did, barely.)

The first step was cutting out the pattern. Well, the FIRST first step was folding the fabric in half and laying it out flat, which was probably the hardest part of the whole project. I chose a "knit" fabric that is stretchy and flowy and lovely, but wow it did not want to lie flat.

So once THAT was done, I began measuring out the pattern. My fabric was a bit too small so I had to fudge it a little by making one side the length that I wanted the skirt and the other side a little short, but because it is a wrap-around I figured I could get away with it.

After marking out my pattern and pinning it within an inch of its life, I cut it out. Because the fabric was folded in half "right sides in" (does a knit even really have a right side?) I cut both pieces at once.

Then I pinned and sewed together the one seam needed to attach the two sides of the skirt. Then, in theory, the skirt was done!

In theory.

It did work, but because the fabric was stretchy and heavy the nice waist that I cut exactly the right size for me stretched to be way too big for me! The skirt is supposed to go around your waist twice and it went around three times. So it still worked as a skirt, but kind of defeated the purpose of having a full circle skirt (which is that it is super flowy and full and spins really well). So after some problem solving I decided to add a waistband - one that isn't stretchy.

Digging through my box of fabric I found a brown sheet that I think was a candidate for being made into a cloak at one point in time. It was an almost-shimmery fabric, and I liked the colour combination with my purple skirt. And along the end it had nice band of fabric that was just the right length and had a seam all ready to go! I just removed it from the sheet with a seam ripper and sewed it onto my skirt.

Though only time will tell if my new skirt will live up to it predecessor, I am very pleased with how it turned out!