Hi Minerva friends!

I’m totally smitten with my new Ivory Plisse Skirt!
I’ve had the image of this skirt in my head for a while, and I’m so happy that it is finally a reality! It’s gorgeous, classy, and uber comfy due to an elastic waistband! And my hands are super happy because I added POCKETS!

This skirt was a super simple make. I used the width of the fabric to help determine the width of the skirt! It is a slight A-line shape, with the width of the hem being the full width of the fabric. I made the top of the skirt to be the width of my hips, plus an extra 2 inches for fullness.

Then I wrapped my elastic around my waist to determine the length to cut. This ended up being my waist measurement less 1 inch, plus seam allowance. This measurement could be different depending on the type and stretch of elastic used, so it is always a good idea to check each time before cutting and/or finalizing the length desired.

I also lined this plisse fabric with a solid white ITY knit since the fabric is quite see-through on its own, especially for a skirt. I cut the lining to the same dimensions, aside from cutting it shorter than the skirt so that the lining would not show below the skirt hem at all.

I used the pocket pattern piece from the Cleo Skirt (pattern by Made By Rae), but you could easily draft your own, simply by tracing a pocket shape around your hand. Custom pocket size anyone!??

I inserted the pockets into the side seams, placing them between the lining and the main fabric. The pockets are made from the lining fabric.

To attach the skirt to the waistband elastic, I first serged the lining and main together along the top. Then I pressed well to help everything lay nicely, especially since both fabrics that I was working with were quite slippery and tended to just flow around like water. With a mind of their own. Lol.

Then I pinned the elastic to the skirt, placing the elastic on top of the serged edge. Then I topstitched on top of the elastic, stretching it to match the width of the skirt, using a stretch stitch on my sewing machine. I tried to keep a consistent 3/8” seam allowance on the elastic, stitching on top of the serged top edge of the skirt portion.
This part wasn’t easy, not going to lie! But I persevered and I’m happy with how it turned out!

The hemming part was super easy. Because I didn’t hem! 😊 Other than making sure my edges were cut very cleanly, I found no reason to hem this lovely fabric. With the pleated texture, hemming would only distort that.

The fabric has a nice amount of mechanical stretch in both directions, so I chose to cut my fabric so that the pleats would fall vertically, even though the selvedge was perpendicular to the pleat direction.

This fabric would be so fun to sew into many types of garments! I do have a small piece left, and I’m going to see if I can squeeze an Ogden Cami out of what remains. I could also see it as a gorgeous top with statement sleeves!

It is available in Ivory and Black, the possibilities are endless with those staple colors!

I paired my new skirt with a Tabor V-Neck from my wardrobe. I made this sweater a couple of years ago, and each winter it see a lot of wear! I'm SO happy with how well these two pieces work together! I feel a little like a snow princess in this outfit. 😉 Even though there is next to no snow that falls where I live, it is quite alright with me! Haha.

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