Welcome to the Skirt Pattern Instructions. Here you’ll be able to find a step by step guide on how to draft your first basic skirt. I have good news for you, skirts are one of the easiest and quickest patterns to draft. So get your pen and paper and let’s get started!!
This pattern is the base for designs like the pencil skirt, tulip or wrap skirts, sky’s the limit.
The first thing we have to do before we start drafting is take the right measurements. We’re only going to need 4 measurements. When taking them, wear the underwear you’d normally wear under your skirt and make sure the measuring tape is not too tight around your body. Don’t worry if you feel the measurements are a bit off, you’ll be able to fix that during the prototyping phase!
Measure the circumference of the thinest part of your torso, below the rib cage. I’ll show you how to modify the pattern for high-waisted and low-waisted pants later on.
Measure the circumference of the widest part of your lower body. This is normally the hips but your widest part can sit lower. If you want more precision, you can always measure the front and back hip arches separately (from side to side).
Measure the vertical line from the waist to how long you want your trousers to be. Best results are when you measure until your ankle bone. They can be made longer or shorter later on.
The hip depth is measured from where you measured your waist to where you measured your hips, on the side of your body.
Step number one is to build the structure of our skirt foundation. We start at the top left and mark 0.
Finish drawing the rectangle
Divide the structure: From the line 0-1 half way to 1-2 plus 0.75cm. The front is on the right and the back is on the left.
Once the main structure is ready, let’s draw the main lines that will define the shape of the culottes.
Next step is to draw the Waist. For that we’ll need to make some assumptions about darts.
Darts are our way to create rounder shapes in the pattern. Every body will need different measurements. The rules are:
As a standard dart measurement you can use:
As explained before, darts will depend on your body. This is the standard way of drawing them but use the ones that suit you best.
To position the darts, divide both front and back waistlines in 3 parts.
The basic skirt foundation is known for being straight. To finish the draft, just draw lines from 0 to 1, from 3 to 2 and a perpendicular line to the hip line, from 5 down.
To finish the pattern, draw the final curves:
And there you go, with this skirt pattern instructions you have finished another one of the basic blocks! A small thing you can check is to measure the side seam for both front and back patterns. They should be the same measurement.
If you prefer step by step instructions in a video format, check out the following video. Take into account that the correct numbers are ALWAYS the ones on this article and not the ones on the video, as it is difficult to correct errors once the video has been published.
