McCalls 6966 – nice skirt!

Way out…this fabric is neon!

I had no idea this cotton/lycra knit from Fabric mart was so bright when I ordered it…but it was kind of fun to find some way to use it 🙂

I looove knit maxi skirts. What a great excuse to be comfortable (as in pajama comfortable) and trendy at the same time. I’ve been making mine sort of free-hand from a pattern I drafted a couple years ago. Blogged here and  also seen again here…

Enter McCalls 6966. It’s fuller than my self-drafted pattern, and it has piecing options. I just had to give it a go.

I really like the extra volume. Swingy…

I sewed the size Medium, which has a generous hip measurement of 46″, for my 41″ hip. I really don’t want cling at that particular spot. 

I made only a couple changes to this delightful skirt: 

• I added 3″ to the length.
• And changed the waistband!

Having read the reviews online (thank you, fellow bloggers), I wasn’t crazy about the upper yoke and waistband on the pattern. So – I left off the top ‘yoke’ piece, discarded the waist design, and drafted a yoga waistband instead.

It’s so easy to make a yoga waistband. Just cut a rectangle across the stretch of a knit, 2 inches or so less than your waist, and about 12″ wide. I use a 12″ width, because the resulting 4″ or so folded waistband fits well on my waist. You might like something different.

Seam the short ends together. Then fold in half across the length, and sew to the top edge of the skirt as a band, wrong sides together. If you’ve sewn a band onto a knit tee, you’ve done this. There are lots of online tutorials for doing this… just google ‘yoga waistband’ and find one you like. 

Great for knit skirts and pants and knit pajamas!

More pics (I’m wearing a cotton/spandex Plantain tee with elbow-length sleeves in all of these):

All those leaves in the garden – it’s our Florida version of fall, when all the mahogany tree shed their leaves. To compensate, the orchids in the guava tree are blooming…

Happy to respond to any questions on the skirt/waistband, just send an email. Bye for now – Coco