Since my making of the last tiered skirt, there have been a few tiered denim skirts floating across my screen. Tiered, Denim! There's an idea. These skirts look like jeans that have been cut off above the legs and sewn to tiers of gathered fabric. In my closet hang a couple of pairs of denim shorts. They are too tight as shorts but will fit as skirts.
The first one is 33" in the waist, and snug in the hips. The second one is larger and stretchier. The waist will fit, the hips kinda sorta. It was cut it off above the crotch and below the pockets, like the tiered skirts online. The cut off portion will go to amend the first one. Then there's fabric for first skirt:
2 yards cotton spandex twill railroad stripe in indigo/ivory, $26.00, 8.26 oz/sq yd, 280 gsm. 52" wide, and 1 1/2 yards cotton/spandex denim in bright blue, $16.80. 50" wide. Both cuts came from Stonemountain and Daughter. I used them to make skirts, leaving about 1/2 yard of each. There is also 1/2 yard dark blue denim from JoAnn Fabrics, purchased for another project but never used. Never recorded, no info on cost.
This is a good bit of fabric, enough for a color-blocked skirt, the only one cut to a pattern, Simplicity 1887. There was enough of the dark blue denim to cut out the front and back at the shorter length. Those two pieces used all of the dark blue.
The pocket and waistband were cut from the railroad stripe twill, leaving the medium blue to use in the upcycled skirts. Skirt and pocket assembly followed the pattern instructions, but the waistband uses a wide elastic waistband in the sides and back instead of the casing and elastic.
Sizing--This is a 12. (I was worried so I sewed the top of the side seams with a 3/8-1/2" seam, moving to the 5/8" seam further down the side. That wasn't necessary, but didn't seam haha to do any harm. This meant a 3/8" seam on the waistband so it would match.)
Rather than following the pattern instructions as I did for the pants, I learned from that experience and avoided a cumbersome triple layered seam at the waist. Instead of folding the waistband in half and sewing it to the skirt, I sewed the band on then turned the facing down and hand sewed it to the back of the band, enclosing all the seams and making for a completely flat, I.e. normal, waistband seam. This followed a little thought and fiddling in which I learned that the wide elastic can be sewn to the skirt downwards and then folded up to enclose the seam neatly.
Luckily there was just enough navy blue bias binding in the stash to add to the hem--this skirt is short! With the binding, there is a 1/2" hem, topstitched down. Total length is 18" after accounting for the lower waistline in front. It is really the perfect skirt, short enough to be cool, long enough to be modest, well-fitted and cute. I will definitely be making this one again.
For the other denim skirts there were two pairs of jean shorts, different lengths, different shades of denim but very similar since they are the same brand. Upcycling shorts to skirts requires a lot of ripping. The inseam and the crotch seam must be ripped out, the crotch seam realigned and the inseam filled in, joining the legs. I have done this multiple times with jeans, but this is the first time with shorts. Using shorts meant I was short on fabric. (Haha again.) With a jeans to skirt project, the legs can be cut off and used to fill in the inseam. For these two shorts, cutting the legs off one made fabric available for the other. The legless pair was cut off just below the back pockets, eliminating the need to change the crotch seam. The legs were used to fill in the inseam on the longer shorts.
There were style differences in these two shorts. One had flat felled seams on the inseams, with the outside seams stitched once and pressed open. The other reversed it. The result will be flat felled seams on the outside seams and more at the skirt front and back. There's a nice topstitch stitch on my machine and topstitch thread in blue and gold in my stash. One pair had topstitching in gray and one in blue and gold. I'm going with the blue and gold to suss it up. The topstitching on both skirts is sewn with three strands of thread. There is a matching stitch in the embroidery mode of my sewing machine. Coupled with topstitch thread and a topstitch needle produces:
Hemmed to a length 21" from waistband.
My fourth skirt ideas were getting too desperate, so after finishing one that I don't like as well as these two, I will quit this venture. The weather is cooling off too much anyway and my machine needs to visit the repairman for a checkup.
Done!
Yah, it doesn't match, but denim fades. As does my denim skirt enthusiasm.
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