How the hack did you do that? @s.a.n.n.e_s.e.w.s and her #Kamala

Hello, I'm Sanne, a true sewing lover and also Community Manager at Fibre Mood. I post my creations on Instagram under the name s.a.n.n.e_s.e.w.s.

Besides the beautiful patterns from Fibre Mood, something else that catches my eye with every magazine is the fantastic styling by Christine, which you see in photo shoots. So when Special n°2 came out, I immediately fell in love with the styling around the Lucca swimming costume and matching wrap skirt. I had to have a skirt like that too! Of course, my first reaction is not to skim the web and buy such a skirt, but rather to just make it myself. And so said, so done! So I am very happy to tell you how this skirt came about. 

In my search for the right pattern, a dear colleague helped me and together we arrived at the Kamala dress. Of course, I wanted a skirt, so the hack was to omit the top. 

What adjustments have you made?

Make it longer

I started by lengthening the skirt. On Kamala, the skirt comes to above the knee, but I wanted my skirt to be mid-calf length, so I lengthened it by 27 cm. To do this, I cut perpendicular to the grainline on my pattern, drew a parallel line and stuck paper between the pieces, making sure the grainline continues to be straight. Want some extra explanation on this? In Jospehine's Fibre Mood Academy tutorial, we use this principle to turn the dress into a top. Feel free to take a look here!

Waist adjustment

Afterwards, I had to adjust the waist. Since Kamala is a dress, definitely check the waist circumference otherwise your skirt is too big. First, measure yourself at the narrowest point of your waist without pulling too hard on the measuring tape (make sure there is a comfortable tension). 

Then compare to the finished garment measurement at the waist. Is the value in the table larger than your waist? Then subtract your waist circumference from this. You divide this value by 4 and remove it from the side seams. 

Since the back piece is cut on the fold, you will take away 1x ¼  of your measurement here at the top of the waist at the side seam, grading to nothing at hip height (i.e. location of the notch). The front panel is asymmetrical, so here you will take away ¼ each on the left and right front panel at the side seam, again grading to nothing at hip height. 

As an extra check, you can now measure the drawn lines (from waist to hip height), as they should be the same on the front and back panels. Are they not? Then adjust the lines. Adjust the seam value.

Once this is done, you need to draft facings to finish the waist. For the back, right front and left front pieces, first pin closed the darts / pleats on your paper pattern pieces. For the back, trace around the top waistline edge and the tops of the side seams about 10cm down, then draw a line 7cm below (and parallel) to the traced waistline edge (this includes 1cm seam allowance). Repeat for the left front and right front. Note that for the right front, the waist facing needs to be shorter than the waistline edge because of the hem facing (the waist facing should overlap the hem facing by 1cm). To join the facing sections together, you can have a look for example at the instructions for the Bay skirt.. The process is the same.

And there was my Kamala wrap skirt! Conclusion? Ready in an evening! Good luck! 

Can't wait to get started with Kamala either? You can buy the pattern here. Don't forget to share your creations via the website or on Instagram with the hashtag #FibreMood. We can't wait!