{homemade is best}

The other day I was going through my material bin and I found this fabric that had big cream colored flowers on a navy background. I got it from my grandma a long time ago, and I had thought about making a skirt out of it, but I never did for some reason. So it just sat there in my bin, waiting. And then when I found it again I realized just how easy it would be to make a skirt out of it, and I wouldn't hardly have to cut it at all. So I made up my own "pattern" in my head and tried it out. And it worked! 

So, here's what I did. I have no idea how many yards of fabric I started out with, but the first thing I did was turn it length-wise and then pin it to the skirt I was wearing. I pinned some big pleats all the way around.

 I left this much on the side so that I would have room to sew a seam and a zipper in.Oh, and I cut a waistband from this. I think that was about ten inches wide and then I folded it in half.

the waistband, folded in half

 Next I sewed all the pleats down. Then I turned it inside out, and sewed the waistband on, matching it to one side and sewing it around the whole way. Miraculously, it fit the whole way around almost perfectly!

 I really messed up this pin.

 Then I tried it on to know if it was the right size for my waist. And it was a little too big, so I cut at an angle from the waistband down. Not much, but enough.

 Then I cut the waistband a little smaller, too.

 Now for the zipper part. I kinda taught myself how to do this on a different skirt I made, so I really don't know if it's done properly, but it works for me! First I laid the zipper on the skirt where it will be sewed in at, and then I pinned the raw edges from the bottom of the zipper to the bottom of the skirt. I put a pin right at the zipper as a mark to know where to stop sewing.

 I took off the zipper (and lost it temporarily) and sewed from the bottom of the skirt up to the pin that I used to mark where the zipper goes. Is this confusing yet? I zig-zag stitched the raw edge to prevent unraveling.

 Then (after finding it again) I pinned the zipper on the inside of the skirt and sewed the bottom to the skirt right where I sewed up to.

 Then I unzipped the zipper and pinned one side to one side of the skirt, and I sewed up to the top. And I repeated for the other side.

 Okay, next I put in a hem. Confession time: this material already had a finished edge, so I didn't want to cut it and make more work for myself. Thus, because of that and the fact that I'm a shorty, my skirt has a hem that's a little over 4''. Oh, and I pressed the hem before I sewed it. That was a huge help with such a big hem.

 See the finished edge? I really like the size of the hem to be honest.

 

And I had to sew a little pleat in the waistband to make it fit better. 

 

 As a final step, I (kinda sloppily) sewed on some snaps above the zipper. I really don't know how to sew these on right either. But, hey, they still work!

 Here it is! I like it a lot. I thought about sewing on some lace or ribbon or something around the hem to show off the high hem. It reminds me of a fancy pioneer skirt with the hem being so high. But I haven't done it yet because along with being a shorty, I'm a second-born, and I hate making decisions.

 When I make something like this out of some random big piece of material that my grandma gave me a long time ago, and it turns out, I realize just how much I like making stuff. And I realize that homemade is best.