Taking in a Skirt DIY Sewing Tutorial

For those of you who haven’t yet succumbed to the awesome epicness of Game of Thrones, Sunday was the season 5 premiere (yes, I’m an addict) and I was super stoked.  As we were going to a friend’s house to watch and we’ve all been anticipating this moment for months, I wanted something cute to wear.  I’ve had this hunter green pencil skirt for a while, but she’s been patiently waiting on me to fix her up as she came from the Goodwill bins and was a bit too large as-is.  I figured that she’d be a quick fix and would be both comfy and cute to wear for the occasion, so I pinned her to my adjustable dress form which is sized to match my waist and hip measurements precisely, and gave it go.

Before we get started with the tutorial, let’s talk about the Goodwill bins for a minute and how awesome they are.  As your trusted resourceress, one of my favorite pastimes is digging through the bins and buying clothes by the pound for mere cents apiece.  However, the clothing in the bins isn’t always clean, so the bins are not for the faint of heart.  This can be seriously nasty business, trust me.  You will sometimes see things you wish you could unsee, but that’s part of the fun, as long as you are well-equipped with your bins survival gear.  I suggest rubber gloves at the very least and if you’re really going to dig in you might also want a face mask because it can get pretty dusty.

Aside from simply being gross, the other issue with this method of thrifting is that, since the clothes in the bins are not necessarily clean, you do not try them on prior to purchase (well, maybe some people do, but I wouldn’t suggest it).  You just kind of grab what looks nice and hope for the best.  You’ll often come away with really great pieces and it will barely make a dent in your wallet, and to me that’s worth the risk of accidentally touching an unwashed thong (provided I have proper gloved protection, of course).

I wash all bin finds in very hot water with detergent and white vinegar before using them for any purpose.  I use the bins to create my scrap fabric and refashion stash, but once in a while I’ll find a nice piece that fits and works as-is, or something that’s just a bit too big that I can slightly alter to make it fit perfectly, like the skirt in question today.  50¢ and less than 30 minutes of measuring and sewing later, I have a nice new high-waisted pencil skirt, perfectly tailored to fit like a glove.

For the big event on Sunday, I dressed it up with a belted cardigan, patterned tights and boots because it’s still a bit chilly here in the mountains.  It was the perfect outfit for an evening of sitting on the edge of my seat wondering what will happen next.  Hope you guys enjoy the tutorial, and feel free to discuss GoT in the comments because, seriously, only like 2 actual things happened in that episode, aside from reiterating approximately 100 things that we all already knew.  Hopefully next week is more exciting!

Taking in a Skirt Sewing Tutorial

Step 1:  Try the skirt on and decide where you want it to sit on your waist or hips.  We do this to know how high up to pin the skirt on the dress form.  You can measure the distance from the bottom of your bust to the top of your skirt, but I just tried mine on and guestimated because that generally works for me and I am not always precise.

Step 2:  Lay skirt flat and measure and mark the center front and back.  Mine had a zipper in back so I only had to mark the center front.  If you’re good at lining things up this step isn’t necessary, but it only takes a minute and makes it easier to properly pin the skirt to the dress form.

Step 3:  Pin skirt to dress form paying close attention to lining up center front, center back and side seams.

Step 4:  Pinch side seams loosely or tightly depending on your preferred fit.  My skirt has some stretch and a zipper, so I pinched the sides in fairly tight.  Pin along your new seams.

Step 5:  Draw a line over pins, then remove pins to remove skirt from dress form.  I used basic white chalk for marking the lines; I’ve tried a variety of fancy fabric-specific crayons/markers/whatever, and I honestly prefer plain, cheap, white chalk or cheap washable markers, depending on the fabric and the project.  Once you remove skirt from form, simply lay it out flat again and repin over your lines.  You technically don’t have to repin over the lines if you’re comfortable holding the front and back of the fabric together yourself as you sew, but I’m not good at that so I take the couple of extra minutes to repin everything before sewing.

Step 6:  Using a straight stitch, sew over your chalk lines, removing pins as you go and backstitching at beginning and end, then tie off threads.  Go ahead and try her on, and make any minor adjustments as necessary.

I sewed a little further down into the hips of mine because my original lines ended a bit abruptly causing a slight bulge; I determined that they needed to graduate a bit more into the original side seams.

Finishing:  Cut any excess fabric leaving about a ¼” seam allowance on each side.  If you are using a fabric that frays, you can go ahead and zig zag stitch over your seam allowance and this will stop the fraying.  Luckily mine did not fray so at this point I was finished.

And the final result: