Easy Skirt Tutorial (Just One Yard of Fabric Needed!)

I made a skirt. That's right, I. made a skirt. As in an article of clothing. As in, I'm practically a seamstress now. Who wants to pay me to ruin tailor their clothing?

Earlier this year when I was working on my boys' bedroom makeover, I ordered several fabrics for pillows and was sent a wrong fabric by mistake. The company sent the correct fabric out right away and told me to keep the 1 yard of chevron fabric I received by mistake. I had no idea what I was going to do with it as maroon is not a color I use in my house.

Then one day, I had nothing to wear (which probably meant I needed to do laundry). I decided to get creative. My one yard of free chevron fabric was home decor grade which  meant it was a little heavier, but it was still 100% cotton and I decided to make it work.

This home decor fabric is 54" wide, which means I only needed a yard to make a nice short skirt. I folded it in half hamburger-style to make a giant tube 36" long. Next, I folded the selvage edges back, did my best to match the zig zag print and pinned it.

After running it through the sewing machine I pressed the seam open so it laid flat.

Then I picked one of the ends of the big tube to be the top of the skirt, and created a place to run a band of elastic for the waist (leaving about 4 inches open so I could thread the elastic in):

I used some elastic I already had -- just wrapped it around my waist and then subtracted a good 3-4 inches before cutting it to length. My skirt fabric was heavier so I needed to make sure the elastic was snug enough to hold it on my waist!

I sewed one end of the elastic into the skirt and threaded the other end through the waistband I created by using a safety pin in the other end of the elastic. Sometimes this takes some wiggling! Once I got the elastic all the way through, I pinned it in place and then sewed it securely. Then I sewed the last few inches of the waistband closed.

Voila. Instant elastic waistband.

Next, I threw the skirt on and decided where I wanted to cut it length wise. I cut a band off the bottom of the skirt and finished the edge:

Finally, I used the fabric I cut from the bottom of the skirt to make a sash in order to hide the elastic waistband -- if you have more skills than I do, make a real waistband... zippers frighten me, so this is what I did.

And, it's done. Easy peasy. I tried to take photos of myself and out of 30 or so (I'm one of those girls), this is the most in focus. And I look like I'm doing Blue Steel or something. You win some, you lose some... we're friends though, right? No judging. :)

It was a quick, simple project -- no real skills necessary. If I can do this, you can too! Bad sewers of the world, unite!