How to make a school girl skirt

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Pleated tennis skirt or as it is better known, school girl skirt.



I tried my best to make one and I can tell you one thing it takes time. Sewing part is fast, but making pleats takes some time. 

All in all 2 hours project. Let's dive in.






For this project you are going to need: 

  • fabric of your choice
  • measuring tape
  • pen and paper
  • sewing pins
  • tailors chalk
First, we need to take some measurements. 


You are going to need waist and hip measurements. With that you need the length of the skirt that you want. My advice is to start with a bit longer skirt. It's always easier to cut off the excess than it is to add more on. 

Let's do some math. I promise it's not going to be that hard.

1. Take your waist measurements and divide it by the number of pleats that you want to have.        
In my case I put in 16 pleats. This is going to give you individual pleat width. 

2. Get your material and cut it to the length that you want your skirt to be. Leave some material on all 4 sides for seam allowance. That is around 1 - 2 cm ( 1/2 inch) on each side. 

3. 

From left to 0 is seam allowance. Length from 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3 is pleat width. To get the pleat you need to take point 1 and point 3 and put them together. Point 2 a the fold of a pleat. Repeat that for every pleat that you have. 
My advice is to take pins, and once you've marked the pleats on top, do the same on bottom and in the middle of the pleat. It will make ironing easier and more even.

4. Once you get all your pleats, iron them. It will be easier to work with them in the next stage.

5. It is time to do some more math. Because women are born with some curves on their bodies, we need to take that into account too. That is why we took hip measurements. 
Take your hip measurement and subtract the waist measurement from tham. 
Once you get that number divide it by the number of pleats. 

This number is used to put some width around hip area. In my case it was 1.5 cm, but I put 2 cm for more room and that was a good choice. ( That is around 1/2 inch.)

6. 


W-H is mesurment from waist line to hip line. Take that measurement and draw a line on every pleat that you have. On that line we are going to add our new measurement that we got in 5. ( shown in the photo up with red line). Add it to every pleat. Once you did that, sew every pleat from the top till that point with a straight stitch ( red line in the photo down).
 


7. Next thing to do is to put in the zipper. Now about that. Am still learning how to put it in. This is how my turn out. Not bad for the first time.




I still have a lot to learn and one of the things is zipper. 
Next time I'll try to hide it or I'll try to put in the invisible one. But am not mad at all how this turned out. 

8. We are almost done. After the zipper close the skirt on the side (or before the zipper. This depends on how you put in the zipper.) 

9. It's time to hem the skirt. There are so many ways to do this. I've used my overlock machine and just folded the hem inwards. 

10. We have come to the last step. Waistband. You can add a waistband if you want or you can just fold the top inwards and make it a regular hem. This is fast way to do it, if you know that you will not be showing the upper part of the skirt. 
But I will explain how to make a waist band.
Measure around the top of your skirt and to that measurement add 5 cm (2 inch). 


Cut out a rectangle. Length of the rectangle is the one you measured + 5 cm (2 inch) and thickness is 2 times the thickness of your desired thickness. In my case I wanted it to be 5 cm (2 inch). Which means that the thicknes of my rectangle needs to be 10 cm (4 inch). With this we need to add 1 cm (1/2 inch) seam allowance. 

In every waistband you make there needs to be an interlining. It makes it sturdy. 

Iron waistband in half. Sew skirt and waist band right sides together. The corner is a bit more tricky. 


Turn waistband right sides together and sew the corner like it is shown in the picture (sew on the red line). Little black like is showing where the skirt part starts. Once you have that flip it inside out. Make sure that the corners look nice. This part is used for a button or a hook on top of the skirt. 
The last thing you have to do is hem the inside of the waist band and sew it to the skirt. You can hand sew it or with the machine. Your choice. 

And there you go. Little school girl skirt. 

Things that I used:

(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

https://amzn.to/3yBRLBA - plaid cotton fabric ( you can use any fabric of your choice)

https://amzn.to/3RWzTbo - measuring tape

https://amzn.to/3yxV0JV -  sewing pins

https://amzn.to/3TgADZJ -  tailors chalk


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