Wash Skirts

 My 1930s sewing books will often talk about wash dresses, that is, dresses that are easy to launder and iron up without too much fuss. A garment that can be ironed flat without worrying about pesky ruffles or pleats is to be praised. recently, I made two skirts that one might think of as wash skirts.

A friend just gave me a treasure stove of fabric that had belonged to a seamstress. in the huge plastic bins there are some uncut lengths of both home dec and garment making fabrics as well as a few offcuts left over from sewing project. 

One of these gems was a strip of fabric that was about 20 inches wide and just under two yards long and made out a a lovely dark indigo blue cotton. I thought it would make a good wrap skirt.

The fabric wrapped one and a half times around my hips. I added a few darts along the top edge.(Those are the triangles at the top of the drawing above.) I placed the darts where I thought would be on either side of the CF and CB.I added two ties made out of the same fabric. I attempted to add a buttonhole for ease of wrapping but I made it too small so instead I added a loop to pull the tie through.

This is the skirt.

It is surprisingly flattering on me.  It looks like it could be office wear, but it is also kind of funky and arty looking at the same time.

I can vary how I wrap it depending on my mood. My dummy's flocked skin makes it hard to play with the wrapping.  It looks similar to this Free People skirt but my version  doesn't show a peek of thigh. Because the the skirt goes a full 1.5 times around the widest part of my body there is no danger of flashing strangers as there can be with a conventional wrap skirt.

The other skirt I made was based on a skirt idea I keep seeing on Pinterest.

It's a tube with two side ties. This version has waist buttons but I have seen versions minus the buttons that of course I can't find now.

Here is another version with an actual waistband.

My  sister had given me a couple of lengths of Ikea fabric for my birthday. I had turned one into a dress.

My sister also gave me another length of fabric that I turned into pillow covers for my daughter.

A chunk of the black floral fabric was left over and it was itching to become one of those simple tube wrap skirts. I finally succumbed  to the call of the fabric wanting to be made into a skirt.I cut a length that reached about from my waist to my ankle, sewed it into a tube,and hemmed it.

This messy drawing shows the fabric sewn into a tube. You can imagine the hem at the top and bottom of the tube.

I then added ties on either side near the top of the skirt. I was lazy and didn't want to bother doing any math so each tie is the full width of the 60 inch fabric.

Like I said, I was feeling lazy so I didn't bother adding buttons along the top edge to adjust the waist line.

To put on the skirt you fold and tie it into place. Here I folded the excess fabric to the back creating sort of a bustle and a flat front.

 Here, I tucked all of the excess fabric to one side

You can also center to folds on either side of the waist.

For the amount of effort I put into these skirts I was fully prepared to be satisfied with them even if they weren't flattering on my body. Amazingly, they both look good on. They are both easy to wash and iron and really easy to pack in a suitcase.