Denim Skirt

Last year I bought some indigo denim to make myself a skirt. I whined about my inspirational piece in this post, and then became discouraged for the next half a year because I couldn't find a design I actually liked.

I was browsing my old Hanna Andersson catalogs a couple of months ago, and saw this:

Yes. 

The accompanying description was vague but I had the photo to work with, so I got to work. Finished it last week. 

Whoo! Finally, finally, a skirt that isn't my standard A-Line! 

Well, it still looks A-Line hanging up and wearer-less

but see - there's just a little flare in the hem

from godets

to make it less boring.

Shall we deconstruct it?

I used 3/4 yard of a soft, drapey indigo denim. I probably should have bought a whole yard, just to make the layout easier, but I hate scraps, so I bought exactly what I needed. I used almost every square inch of that 3/4 yard. 

There is no lining, because the denim has a nice enough weight. I did use that good acetate lining to line and face the slash inset pockets, though.

There is a front fly

which I fiddled about with a little too much, trying to get the shape of that curve perfect. So now I have ugly stitches. Serves me right.

I couldn't bear to use the traditional brown jeans thread (too rugged), so I did all the top-stitching in regular slate blue sewing thread. 

Here I am sticking my belly out - how rude - in the only shot I have that shows a near-frontal view.

The draft was quite easy. The top half follows the draft of a traditional straight skirt. I divided the whole skirt into 8 vertical panels which, from mid-thigh down, I cut in to insert 4 godets.

Here's the back of the skirt - see the seam where you'd normally see back waist darts? They were built into the seam i.e. I shaped the top of those two panels to taper towards the top by the same amount as a waist dart. Sorry if I'm not making sense. If you're used to sewing darts or paneled skirts, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. Anyway, the point was to not have visible darts, which would be just hideous in this kind of design. The center back, incidentally, doesn't sink in like in this photo. I was standing funny and sticking my hip out so the camera could get that seam.

And that's basically it! Before I saw the finished skirt, I thought I would hate it because it was, I dunno, flouncy but I was wrong. And happily so. I am going to enjoy wearing it this summer! 

P.S. I know you might ask for a tutorial, and I will apologize in advance, but no. Best if you find a commercial pattern for something like this and work from there. It's quite a basic design. There are so many variables to consider to get this to fit individual wearers that a tutorial wouldn't work.