Sophie’s Slit-and-Panel Skirt

The studio is still the least finished room in the house, but I did manage to work around all the boxes to make one thing – a skirt for Sophie.

Not sure how it started – we were at the local thrift store and next thing I know, Sophie has picked out two skirts and I’ve promised to make them fit her. (She has a thing for full ankle-length skirts right now. And they are practically impossible to find in any store!!!)

Picking the easier, navy one to work on first, I knew I could just fold over the wide waistband to make a casing for some elastic so it would fit Sophie’s waist, not an XS adult’s one. But then Sophie said how excited she was about soon twirling in her new skirt.

Uh oh.

The skirt, as it was, had NO fullness and would NOT twirl well, unless I made some more changes to it…

I let Sophie go through my box of Clothes-To-Be-Used-As-Scraps to find another knit I could work with and she picked this stripey number.

First, I changed the waist to fit my peanut, according to my plan mentioned earlier.

Then I folded the skirt and the shirt in half. One cut up the middle of the folded skirt gave me four tall evenly-spaced slits. And two slanted cuts up the sides of the shirt gave me four tall triangular panels.

Pulling each slit apart (like in the photo above), I put a triangle behind it, with the bottom already-finished hems lining up. Then I top-stitched close to the edge of the slit, catching the triangle underneath. Sort of a messy-edge, reverse applique.

Four easy panels added, and the skirt was done. When she stands still, the striped sections often disappear into the folds and it looks like a plain blue skirt….

…but when she moves and jumps and twirls and twirls and twirls some more, the green and white part peeks out.

So glad you love it, Sophie. Not too long and you’ll be making stuff like this yourself. Seems like every paper I pick up has your fashion sketches on it. Project Runway, Season 59, look out!