My 18 year old self was very pleased when velvet came back into fashion in the Autumn, and specifically burgundy velvet. I had a beautiful claret velvet maxi dress that I wore to death in my adolescence and now I get to repeat the trend all over again!
I found a great stretch velvet in a little fabric shop in Bristol called Calico. It is in the perfect wine colour and has a good amount of stretch in it, so I decided to make a little pencil skirt out of it. I only bought a metre and it was a bargainous £3.95! I didn’t have a specific pattern but figured I would just wing it and draft my own!
How I made my pattern:
Once I had my finished pattern piece, I cut two pieces on the fold from my fabric.
I decided to just use my overlocker for the side seams as the fabric was a knit. This worked really well. I actually ended up taking the sides of the skirt from the hip downwards in by about half an inch, just to get the fit that I wanted, but, as all stretch fabrics are different, I would definitely recommend being conservative at first as, you can always take away more, but you can’t add it back in!
I was perfectly ready to add elastic to the waistband until I tried the skirt on and realised it really didn’t need it. The amazing thing about that is the fact that this is now my favourite skirt to eat dinner in as it stretches with me and let’s me eat as much as I want! Christmas dinner was a breeze!
I just overlocked the raw edge of the waistband, folded it over and sewed a narrow zigzag stitch an inch from the edge.
I repeated this process for the hem, with just a half inch allowance.
Overall, I am really pleased with this skirt. It was a quick and easy make and I wore it to death over the Christmas holidays. It looks great with heels or with ankle boots and is suitably festive. I’ll definitely be using this pattern to make some more stretch skirts in the coming months too.
[…] some more of the fabric I used to make my pencil skirt). I have also made some velvet scrundies, my burgundy skirt and, would you believe it, a red velvet short suit commission by a guitarist playing Angus Young in […]