Knee Length Knit Skirt Tutorial

Is it spring yet in your neck of the woods? We had gorgeous yesterday and rain and sleet today. I guess that’s spring though right? I love my maxi skirts, but with spring here now I thought it was time to have some springy skirts! So I made a couple and today I will show you how. This is a Knee Length Knit Skirt tutorial that’s pretty easy and inexpensive, so you can make a bunch!

And…just so you know I loathe taking pictures of myself and posting them on my blog, so this is a big stop out for me. I had my 10 year taking the pictures and it was quite the undertaking!

Anyway, these are pretty easy to make. Sewing on knits can be a little tricky, but if you can handle that, you can make this skirt! Or lots of them!

Knee Length Skirt Tutorial:

Supplies Needed:

• Knit fabric-about 1 yard (possibly a little more if you are a size large or extra large)
• If you need help sewing on knits-try my ebook. There’s a chapter on it there.

Instructions:

This is made very similarly to the maxi skirt, so if you have made one of those you should be great at this!

We’ll start by cutting it out. You will cut 3 pieces total.

The first two are your skirt pieces. Before you cut you need to measure your waist. Let’s say you have a 32 inch waist. Subtract about 4 inches from that (because the fabric is stretchy) and use that number. So now my number is 28.

**One word of caution-it’s easier to size it down smaller if you make a mistake than it is to size it up bigger, so err on the side of making it too big rather than too small.

So, my waistband size is going to be 28 inches. Take that number and divide it by 4. So, divide 28 by 4 and you get 7. So 7″ is how wide the top measurement of your skirt will be when you fold the fabric in half to cut it out. Fold your in half and cut it to look like this:

Again, the top measurement on that skirt is 7 inches (because my waistband size is 28). To determine the length, measure from your waist to just below the knee (leaving an inch or so extra for a hem). I cut mine 25 inches long. (I’m short.) And the bottom should flare out about 24 inches more than your waist (so 6 inches per side when it is folded). So mine is 52 inches around at the bottom. Just mark where you want it and angle it gently outward at the bottom as you cut.

Hope that all made sense! It’s hard to give these instructions!

Now you need a waistband. Luckily this part is easy. Cut a piece of fabric as long as your waistband (so mine is 28 inches) and 12 inches wide. Then you will fold it in half to look like this:

OK, cutting out was the hard part. Now all you need to do is place right sides of the skirt together and sew up each of the sides. Use a stretch stitch if your machine has one. If not, I recommend a long, narrow zigzag stitch:

Then, fold your waistband so that it forms a loop and sew the ends together:

With your skirt right side out, slide the waistband down inside the skirt. The raw (unfolded edge) of the waistband should be at the top of the skirt. The raw edge seam (shown above) should be facing out (as in not touching the wrong sides of the fabric on the inside of the skirt). Match that seam up with one of the side seams on the skirt. Then, pin the waistband in place all the way around the top of the skirt and sew it in place. Then it should fold over the outside like this:

Last, hem the bottom. I just fold it under once when sewing on knits because it won’t fray. So fold it under about 1 inch one time and sew all the way around. I like to do a second stitch all the way around so that I have a nice double stitch for the hem.

And you’re done!

Here’s a fun idea! If you get solid colored fabric, you can add some fun embellishing with fabric paint! I used DecoArt’s SoSoft in Wysteria to add this stenciling to a skirt: ( I also used a DecoArt stencil) 

To do this I just used a sponge dauber and a simple stencil and put a tiny bit of paint on:

Love how that stenciling turned out!