Chiffon Maxi Skirt Knock Off

Hello again, loyal followers, Allegra here. I wanted another summer skirt, but had a flowy-er one in mind this time.  A chiffon maxi skirt was what I needed!

I looked out some fabrics from in our stash, and found this light pink one with a flowery pattern of darker pinks and grays. I did want a maxi skirt, and mom said she could probably work with this chiffon, so we got started. First we asked dad if he had any suggestions, ‘cause he’s been helping us out with projects quite a bit lately.

He liked the gathered style that I had picked in this inspiration photo, but said that we should probably not gather it as much if any at the sides, because that makes a poof, which can cause the feeling of large hips. Uh, yeah. So we did take his advice, and made the sides a lot less gathered.

Here’s Mom to tell you about the construction process:

1: Sew a tube from the width of the lining fabric.  (Mine was 44/45” width)

2: Sew a tube from the width of the pink chiffon fabric.  (Mine was 60” width)

3: Gather these 2 tubes separately, both to the same circumference.  Then I shifted the gathers on the chiffon fabric so most of the gathers were in the front and the back to achieve the look like the inspiration photo.

4: Baste these 2 gathered tubes together.

5: Finish the tops of these two.  I decided to do it at this point because I could do it in one step.

6: Sew the two layers to wide elastic for a waistband.  This was the first time I’d done this, and you’ll notice there are no photos of the waistband exposed!  But since Allegra doesn’t plan to wear it that way, we’re both happy!

7: Hem the bottoms of the two layers.  I did this at this point so that I could level them off and even them up!  If you are a super seamstress, you can do this at an earlier step, but because it was my first time sewing on an exposed elastic waistband, I wasn’t sure how even the hem would be when I was finished!  Plus Allegra wanted the lining to be about 2 inches shorter than the chiffon overlayer, so that’s another reason I did it after!  It was really very easy, and I’ll be using this method again.

Now I have a cute chiffon maxi skirt that’s more fancy, and more flowy, just what I wanted!

Thanks for reading,

Allegra.