Sometimes, I even drive myself crazy!

A friend of mine purchased Stylearc’s Taylor Knit Skirt which I fell in love with for some striped ponte knit that the store got in.  While I did ask to borrow her pattern, she is a size 6 (88cm hip) to my size 12 (103cm hip).  Fortunately (?), Stylearc provides the sizes on either side (in this case sizes 4 and 8) to give you some leeway.

From their website, Stylearc describes this skirt as:

“This figure flattering jersey tube skirt features a split hem and elastic waist. With its great angles can be made in a stripe to show the design lines as well a plain knit.”

This is the ponte knit I was working with. Perfect, right?

Even by using the size 8 (93cm hip), I would have to incorporate an additional 10cm to bring it up to my size.  Add to the fact, this pattern is drafted for a knit fabric and my fabric has little to no stretch.  In fact, part of the description indicates that there is 5cm/2″ negative ease over the hip.  (Negative ease is when your final garment measurements are smaller than your body measurements, but the stretch in the fabric will provide ease and room for movement.) So all told, I was looking at increasing the size 8 by 15cm to get to my size 12.  No problem!

Instead of just adding to the seam edges, I made 4 vertical cuts in the pattern pieces (a cut on each side of each dart) and spread each slice by 3.75cm. (3.75cm x 4 = 15cm) If I just added to one area, I was worried that it would skew the waist darts.  Got to even out the spread!

The green broken lines on the pattern pieces show where I slashed and spread.

Even though Stylearc suggests 0.7m of fabric for this skirt, you have to allow for the direction of the stripes so I ended up needing 1.4m, double what was suggested.

The cutting and sewing of this garment was easy.  However, on my first try, it was too tight!  Why?  I forgot to add ease!  While I had allowed for the size differences, the fabric does not stretch. I could pull it on, but I could not move or sit.  Standard ease at the hip for a skirt is 4cm or 1.5″. So I had to go back and spread some more.  Success!

While I really like this skirt, I think my next rendition will be shorter.  I hiked up this skirt so the waist band was just under my bra so I could see what it would look like shorter.  I like this much better.

I think it looks better at a shorter length.

What do you think?