I was recently invited to join a Zoom patternmaking class with pattern company Alice and Co. The mother daughter team usually do in person workshops in London but with the lockdown measures in place they moved to hosting online ones instead!

The class I joined was for drafting a skirt pattern using your own measurements. The skirt itself is a super simple one piece skirt block – essentially a rectangle with added darts for shaping. There’s no side seam but a dart instead which makes this perfect for border print fabrics for example.

It was really interesting to hear from experts regarding how to customise this simple design to fit your personal measurements.

Following on from making the pattern, I used the final design to make this skirt!

I firstly cut the lining and used that as a toile to check the fit. I planned on using a laser cut PU fabric which I would be able to unpick so I knew I’d have to nail the fit prior to sewing with it.

You can see where I’ve not been able to press my back seam properly!

The skirt actually ended up slightly big on me. I’d definitely need to make adjustments when I use it next.

This pattern can now be used as a base to start designing other styles of skirt. I can’t wait to experiment!