The Charlotte Skirt

As I am currently on my Easter holiday, I thought I would take advantage of the time to make some clothes to wear to school. I like wearing pencil skirts, especially high waisted ones. So I thought I would have a go at making the Charlotte Skirt from By Hand London. They have a fantastic set of tutorials on their website.

So I picked some bi stretch fabric (I’ll find out the specific type later) from my local haberdashery and some skirt lining. By making my own skirt, it means I can have any colour I like (instead of the sea of grey and black in the shops).

I spent the day preparing my pattern and fabric. So I washed the fabric and while it was drying I traced my pattern.

Although tracing takes longer than just cutting the pattern, I think it’s a good idea, as then I can always make another size later. So armed with a pencil, ruler and tinned spaghetti hoops I traced the 3 pieces.

I always iron my pattern paper first, that way it doesn’t have any creases that change the shape of the pattern. Plus there is something very satisfying about ironing huge sheets of tissue paper – and normally I hate ironing!

I pinned out and cut my pattern pieces from the fabric and transfered all the dart templates using tailors tacks.

So now I am ready to start sewing the skirt shell (but I might cut out the lining before I get out my machine, otherwise I won’t have any table space!).