Jersey-licious

I have been looking forward to making some jersey skirts for quite some time now.  They are extremely comfortable and can be dressed up or dressed down.  However, it is very difficult to find garment fabric in my area.  After looking at three local fabric stores, I knew that I would have to travel in order to find some.  Luckily I work near Gastonia, home of Mary Jo’s Cloth Store.  The other day, my colleagues and I took a trip to Mary Jo’s after eating lunch.  Although I was a little overwhelmed at the selection, I found some lime green and bright blue jersey fabric.  I also found a good website for ordering garment fabrics, and I went a little crazy.  Here are all the jersey fabrics I bought in the last few days:

Here is the lime green cotton jersey skirt:

Waistband:

Below is a picture of the waistband folded over.  (When you make the waistband, it is best to make it pretty tall so you can fold it in half.)

Finished Product:

I chose to leave the edges at the bottom without a hem, because I like the way it hangs.  I have read that this type of fabric doesn't unravel, so it shouldn't need a hem.  I may choose to sew one in the future.  Now, on to some more colors! 

Re-purposed Polo Shirt Skirt

I have been on-the-lookout for some pretty fabric to make a skirt.  Originally, I was trying to find some cotton jersey (stretch) fabric in order to make a long maxi skirt.  However, the local fabric stores don't have much of a selection of that type of fabric.  So, until I can make a trip to Mary Jo's (a large cloth store in Gastonia), I decided to look for some material around the house.

My husband had recently cleaned out his closet and put aside some clothes he no longer wore.  After investigating, I found a pretty green polo shirt.  I just loved the color, so I decided to try and use it.  Because a shirt does not give you a whole lot of fabric to work with, I had to make the skirt about knee-length instead of the maxi skirt length I had in mind.  I started by cutting the biggest rectangular piece I could out of the shirt.  Since the sides were already sewed together with hems at the bottom, it cut out a lot of extra work!

The next task was to try to salvage as much fabric as possible from the remaining back side of the shirt in order to make the waistband.  I cut two small rectangles and sewed them together at each end to form a tube.  Then I folded the tube in half lengthwise and stitched the rough edges together to form a finished waistband.

I took the main skirt piece and straight-stitched around the rough edges.  (This is a temporary stitch, so I didn't backstitch at the end.)  Then, I pulled on the bobbin thread at the back in order to create "gathers" in the skirt. 

After I was satisfied with the amount of gathering, I pinned the rough edges of the waistband to the rough edges of the skirt.  Using a zig-zag stitch, I stitched the pieces together.  After that, the only thing left to do was take out the temporary stitch used to gather the fabric. 

And here is my re-purposed polo shirt skirt.  It only took a few hours!