McCalls 6654 -- Skirt Remake

Winter version -- don't be frightened by my red eyes;)

This is a skirt I made back in March.  Let me preface this by saying that I do not like sewing skirts.  I prefer to wear dresses because they are stand alone, so to speak.  Skirts mean you must also have a suitable top, and those are not very plentiful in my closet.  In addition, most of the dresses I've made hang from the shoulder, allowing me to bypass my waist.  Sewing a skirt, however, requires me to fit my waist and my hips, and on me there is not a whole lot of difference.  Hence my dilemma with skirt patterns:  do I choose the pattern based on my waist and then make the hips smaller, or do I choose it based on my hips and then make the waist wider?

However.....at least two years ago my mother gave me a thrifted maxi skirt made out of tencel fabric.  I love maxi skirts and dresses, but this one was slightly too big and it was rather full.  I never wore it--even once-- because I just didn't have anything to wear with it.  I do love the feel of the fabric, though, and it's not a fabric easily found in my local fabric stores.  Rather than donating all that fabric to the thrift store, I decided to try to transform it into a short, straight skirt.  Straight skirts generally look better on me than A-lines.

I have tried the book Sew What! Skirts book several times, but unlike my friend Elizabeth at MrsThomasinaTittlemouse, I have had no luck.  The skirts have turned out too big (no matter who I was making them for) and unflattering.  I'm either having a problem with the math or the measuring (or both).

So I opted to use a conventional pattern, McCalls 6654, view B.  It is an easy pattern with several skirt variations, designed especially for knits.  The hardest part was deciding what size to use, what with my aforementioned size issues, plus the fact that each knit stretches differently.  After cutting off the waistband and cutting the skirt apart at the side seams, I wrapped the fabric around me to where it looked right, and then measured the fabric against the sizes on the pattern to see which to choose. This seemed to work, although with a different knit the size might need to be changed.

While I was at it, I thought I really need more room in the front and less in the back, so I ended up cutting a size 14 in the front and a size 12 in the back.  The front and back are both cut on the fold.  I raised the cutting line on the front fold by 1/2 inch because I read that can help to disguise a fuller tummy.  I don't know if all that really made much difference, but the skirt did at least fit.

It was impossible for me to get a good photo of the seams

I left a seam in the back center because it was in the original skirt.  The waistband was cut between a 12 and 14.  I used a 1/2 inch seam allowance instead of a 5/8 inch when attaching the waistband to the skirt because I was afraid the one-inch elastic wouldn't fit in the casing otherwise.  Once I decided on all the calculations, the actual sewing took only part of an afternoon.

This is closer to the actual color

It is just a simple plain little skirt, but I like that it transcends seasons.  I can wear it in the winter with boots, as here, but I will also be able to wear it this summer with flats.  At least now it gets worn.  And other than choosing the proper size, McCalls 6654 is a very easy pattern -- good to have in your sewing arsenal.