I’ve been so inspired by sewists who draft their own great looking knit maxi skirts – I love all the variations by Autie at iCandy Homemade, Lizzie at Cotton and Curls has a cute skirt with an elastic band waist, and Miriam at Mad Mim has a great tutorial that includes both flared and gathered versions. Just to name a few!
Having read and sketched and calculated – a lot – I realized that a flared maxi skirt is basically the same shape as the skirt on the knit maxi dress I just finished, Kwik Sew 3703…and measuring against the pattern tissue proved it. Good fortune!
My Kwik Sew 3703 is already modified to be super long to the floor, not ankle length. Since I know that I wear my maxi skirts at 42″ from my waist, I traced a skirt pattern using the lower 45″ of the dress pattern.
The extra 3″ are for the waist seam and hem allowance.
For the waist, I used a yoga style band, which is simply a rectangle, folded wrong sides together, and applied to the top of the skirt. Both Autie and Miriam, in the links above, have great guides on making a yoga style waist band.
I used 2 1/2 yards of 60″ wide fabric. The flare in the skirt and the need to match stripes kept me from overlapping my pattern pieces in any way. But I did get a tee shirt out of the remnants!
This skirt is super comfy to wear! Can you tell the humidity is about 100% in these pics? But I promise the skirt really is comfortable. It’s a medium weight cotton jersey from Fabric Mart, with about 20% 1-way stretch. And it sews like a dream. I did everything on the serger except the hem, which is turned up, folded under, and topstitched.
Love the colors in the stripe…
which mirror many of the Pantone Spring 2013 colors in an interesting and non-floral way. Totally not by design! I just noticed this a couple days ago when Pattern Review announced its Colors of Spring contest 🙂
First of many, this was fun and I feel like Columbus. Do you make ‘your own’ skirts?
Ciao! Coco
Coco's Loft 
Judi, thank you! So happy one of the tutorials was helpful. I don't like to 'make' a tutorial, but I like to read them and I bookmark the good ones. You're welcome on the fabric…my three yards ended up being a tee shirt! well, it happens 🙂
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Thanks, Susan. Yes! go for a maxi! I admit I like to hide my legs 🙂
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Pauline, thanks so much. I don't know – you're lookin' good, stripes might work! Like you have time to make a skirt anyway!
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Thank you, Robyn!
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Thanks, Valerie. I bought the fabric thinking I would do a dress – but did not have enough. Thank goodness! would have lost my mind trying to match those stripes on a dress.
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That is very pretty and looks so nice on you! I like the way it fits…not too big and not too small. I made a maxi skirt that has way too much fabric around the bottom of it…just doesn't look right. I went to Lizzie's link that you posted…I'll re-make mine using her pattern. And, by the way, thank you for posting about the French terry wadder that “kept growng and growing”. I have some that looks like the same kind, so you saved me from a lot of frustration!
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Very cute skirt and I love that fabric! I just made a yoga-waistband skirt and I love it… Now I need a maxi one!
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gosh you are so lucky that you can wear horizontal stripes – it would make me look twice a big – lovely skirt.
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I love maxi skirts and yours looks great. Great idea to use the bottom half of the too.
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Coco, Yes I have made skirts with yoga style waistbands. They are great aren't they. ps. Love yours and the matching stripes
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