Last week the girls at Craft’d Shanghai asked me to host a “Next Step” type sewing a class… they’ve been organising the 'learning to sew' classes for a while, making aprons, pillowcases and totebags… they’ve added zippers to bags and made infinity scarves like absolute legends. But they hadn’t made any other clothing… So, hence the “Next Step”… I was more than happy to host the class, but haven't really taught sewing before, so I emphasized the DIY heavily to all my sewing skills and we talked about lazyseamstressing a bit too!
The day was 4 hours of 3 students, and definitely using the blogs of the sewing community world, I came up with the few steps below:
- Measure your waist
- Measure the length from your waist to where you like the hem to be
- Really puffy & full: at least THREE times your waist measurement
- Only a little puffy: at least TWO times your waist measurement
- The skirt has 2 rectangles: one piece is your waist measurement plus 2.5 cm for ease & 2cm for seam allowance. second piece is the skirt with the width being your preferred measurement, and the length being your length with added at least 4-10 cm for the hem allowance & seam allowance.
- SEW it all up following these tutorials: Gertie's Gathered Skirt and By Hand London
Before the class, I made this skirt as a test to check it all worked… and 100% it’s a skirt, so I think the method worked! And by the end of the Craft’d class there were at least 3 skirts close to finishing so YAY! I was going to make it fuller, but opted for a longer swishy skirt and used the actual width of the fabric as my measurment - so it was *just* two times my waist. LAZY seamstressing but less fiddling around. The 2.5 ease also might be a little toooooo much ease for this doesn’t sit on my waist properly, so I’ll try a little less next time.
It looks so SHORT on the windowbench like this... I must be quite petite, for it feels so long when it's on me! For the first set of photos I paired it with the Lilith & Eve top I made in wintertime, it's a little wonky on the hem because I sew-ed it up terribly but still lovely and light for the spring humidity.
But yes, pretty much, the fabric is from Dongmen Lu Fabric Market here in Shanghai, it’s light cotton rayon or something and I cannot walk past a print like this without purchasing! I love it. It was probably 35RMB a metre so maybe $6 Australian… lovely for springtime!
WOW, it's been a busy year for me so far... I've loved being part of our women's society and all the other busy bee things... AND we're just about to move house! I'm keeping my Instagram updated on the day to day things, and fingers crossed we won't be without internet again - my modem/router died a few weeks back CANNOT EVEN - while we shift. Hoping the China Telecom peeps will be connecting it tomorrow!
Hope you're well! Miss you and hope to see what you're sewing for spring/autumn when I get to read my Bloglovin' tonight!
