Quilted Skirt

I was inspired to make this quilted skirt while I was walking back to the car from the 2022 Pheonixville Firebird Festival.  The festival takes place in January, and I wanted to make something that would keep my legs warm before the bird was lit.  I had made a quilt before, at the Norristown Library, so I already had an idea of how it would be done.

For the color scheme, I was inspired by a fabric I had designed for a t-shirt I made at the Teen Fashion Camp at the Made Institute in Philadelphia.  I wanted something that was brightly colored for the yoke of the skirt, and I based the fabric choices for the rest of the piece off of the different stripes.  I was also toying around with the idea of a sand pirate or wandering circus performer with the color scheme, and I think that the more earthy tones compliment the brighter colors well.

The first thing I did was pattern the skirt and yoke.  I traced and extended the yoke from a preexisting skirt, and used poster board to plan out the skirt.  I knew I wanted it to have a pattern of diagonal stripes, with center front and center back panels separately.  Once I had the  pattern set, I assigned each polygon a fabric, trying not to have the same one next to each other too many times.

Then it was time to cut!  I aligned the stripes of the yoke fabric with the direction of the panel it was in, which I feel like gave the skirt a really nice sense of movement.

After all of the pieces were cut out, I started on the sewing.  I did each section in chunks of two or three pieces at once, and then connected the pieces together to form the whole stripe.  Once the pieces were combined into panels, I sewed all of the diagonal stripes together, then attached them to the center front panel and one side of the center back panel.  When the top layer was done, I added the batting and the muslin lining, and tie-quilted it all together.  Once that was all done, I closed the skirt into a cylinder and hemmed the bottom.  After that was all set, I added the yoke!

I included a pleat in the center back to give the skirt a bit of a bustle effect, and to make it easier for me to move in it.

I'm really happy with how it turned out!  I think that the color scheme and the symmetry work really well, and I think it pairs nicely with the crop top that I made before this.  I feel like it definitely gives the circus/sand pirate vibe I was going for, maybe with a side of timetraveler.  I think this would be a super interesting character to explore further!  If I ever wanted to make something else similar to this, I think I would add more volume in the back for ease of motion.