Introducing Project 005—Fitted Knit Skirt

Our next project is a simple knit skirt that is fitted using negative ease and stretchy fabric.

Welcome to Sewing With Numbers, a newsletter about sewing, math, design and how to draft your own sewing patterns. Through simple pattern drafting exercises, I'll show you how fun, useful and empowering math can be. ✂️ Every 6 to 8 weeks, I feature a different drafting project, with each lesson building upon the learnings from previous ones.

Hello my mathy-sewing friends! Our next project is for a simple fitted knit skirt that uses stretch fabric. Which means we'll get to talk about negative ease and stretch percentage. The silhouette of this skirt is very simple so it's a great first project for designing with knits.

Update 04/2025: The tutorials in this series are now archived for paid subscribers. If you are interested in this project you can upgrade to a paid subscription. Or, you can purchase a pdf version of this project in my shop.

I first sewed a skirt in this style about 10 years ago from the book Sew U Home Stretch book by Wendy Mullin (now out of print). Prior to this book, I was honestly really scared to sew with knits. I didn't have a lot of experience sewing with knits and when I had tried, it had not gone well. These days, I feel like there are so many more resources available online for sewing with knits that it's probably less scary for newbie sewists. Plus, once I got a sewing machine with a walking foot and a serger, sewing with knit fabric was a LOT easier.

(Side note, that yes, I was very aware of Stretch & Sew patterns but had not really tried them. I was pretty skeptical of the stretching technique and I do (still) think that technique was better suited to older kinds of knit fabric. Also, would anyone be interested in a post about S&S and Ann Person? I’ve been thinking about writing something about her for a while.)

Looking back at my old blog posts, I made 5 or 6 versions of this skirt. It was a staple! I loved how easy and comfortable it was to wear. Of course, that was 10 years ago and fashions change.

So, I did a little research and was pleased to see that there are still fitted knit skirts in the shops, mostly in a longer length now. With the longer length, we'll want to include a slit in the skirt so that we can walk freely with a normal stride. Scroll on for some ready-to-wear inspiration.

And, if you’re looking for a little current day photo inspiration, I put together this mood board. There are some great ideas for variations on the design here. In addition to the overall length, you can move the slit placement and length. You could also make the hem wider like in the example at the top left, for a more flared look.

Sources clockwise from top left: (Some links are affiliate links.)

1 Sezane Naelle Skirt, 2 Quince Mongolian Cashmere Fitted Midi Skirt, 3 Vince Camuto Pull-On Side-Slit Jersey Skirt, 4 Tuckernuck AEXAE Red Knit Maxi Skirt, 5 Kaissy slim-fit high-rise stretch-knit midi skirt, 6 MAGDA BUTRYM Knitted mini skirt

Because the fitting mostly relies on our stretch fabric, the pattern pieces are very simple.

In all, we will need the following pattern pieces:

1. Skirt Body Front/Back

2. Waistband

When I’ve made this design in the past, I’ve used the same pattern piece for the front and the back. This has worked fine for me and is simpler to draft. But, if you are blessed with a curvier back side or curvier tummy, then you may want to draft different pattern pieces for the front and back. I’ll talk more about that when we draft the skirt.

I’m planning to share this project in 4 parts:

1. Negative Ease & Stretch Percentage Very important to address when drafting for knits.

2. Drafting the Skirt We’ll take measurements and draft the basic skirt block.

3. Drafting a facing for a slit with a mitered corner If you make a short skirt, you don’t need a slit. But, since current styles are longer, it’s a great opportunity to draft a slit with a mitered corner, just to be fancy.

4. Project Journal I have a couple of rib knits that would be great for this design. And maybe they’d even work for a comfy, but kind of fancy, holiday outfit!

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Thank you so much for following along! I hope you’ll enjoy this project. As always, let me know in the comments if you have any questions. And if you enjoyed this post, you can tap the "heart" at the top or bottom to help other people find it.

Happy mathing!

Beth

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