My first maxi skirt. 

Boy, did this ever challenge me.  To be honest, it's one of the simplest sewing projects I've ever undertaken.  There were no patterns to cut or pin or mess with. Just simple instructions of what to cut out based on your measurements. But it still managed to be complicated. 

For starters, I ordered 3 yards of fabric for this, but I'm pretty sure I was only sent 2. But charged for 3. Unfortunately, I threw away my packing slip and can't verify it. 

Secondly, it's really hard to measure and cut out knits. They are so slippery, unlike your basic cotton fabrics which stay put so obediently. I felt like I was wrestling an otter while trying to get the fabric straight, measured and cut. A wet otter.

But once you have them cut, the rest of this project zipped by.  I did have my serger for this one, and it made the sewing part extremely easy. I kid you not when I say I probably spent 3 hours figuring out how to cut this thing using my fabric and 30 minutes sewing it. It came together so quickly once I had the pieces cut and pinned.

I also must have made some mistakes while taking my measurements.  Even though it says to measure your waist as is, or rather, where you want your waistband to hit (and I did that), I found that the waistband was WAY too big. I had to go back and take it in over an inch on each side to keep it from falling straight off my hips. I'm new at this, though.  

The width at the bottom is directly related to the measurements you came up with for your waist, so I ended up with probably more "swish" than is necessary as a result of making my waist measurements too large.And I would have liked the skirt to be a teensy bit longer, but since I didn't have the right fabric yardage, I had to work with what I had. 

The pattern instructions said to hem the bottom 3/4 of an inch, and since I had a serger, I thought, hey, I'll see if I can figure out a blind hem here! Well, I did figure it out after reading about a bazillion tutorials and practicing on some scrap materials. But truthfully, I think next time I'll just serge the bottom without turning the hem under at all. I think in this case, simpler would have been better. 

Live and learn. Or rather, sew and learn.  

I will say that this is one extremely comfy skirt. I get why pregnant women like them, and now totally count myself among them.

Photo bomber!