After last week's post on the 1950's one seam skirt pattern, I received several comments and emails from readers all intrigued to know how such a skirt is put together. So I've written a post about it. with photos of the pattern pieces and a few crazy reconstructions. Interested? Then read on!
The pattern is this one - Simplicity 3983 from 1952 - which I bought immediately after seeing Kerry's first version a couple of years ago (she's made a couple more since then too!) The pattern has one main skirt piece which is cut on the fold. The other pattern pieces are a waistband and two-piece hip pockets. The skirt has no side seams, so hip/bum shaping is given by the two darts on either side of the centre back seam.
First the back darts are sewn.
The pockets are then stitched to the front curved edges, curves clipped and a snip made into the corner.
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This is to allow the curves to turn under neatly to the inside of the skirt like this:
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For the purposes of this step-by-step, I've made up a teeny, tiny skirt to demonstrate how the pieces go together. I haven't scaled down the pieces perfectly, but it will give you a good idea of how the skirt is constructed. The elf-sized skirt is made up without a waistband (I couldn't be bothered to add one if you must know) but the original skirt does have one.
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| Main pattern pieces: skirt front/back, pocket and pocket yoke |
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| Skirt piece opened out |
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| Darts from right side |
The pockets are then stitched to the front curved edges, curves clipped and a snip made into the corner.
This is to allow the curves to turn under neatly to the inside of the skirt like this:
The pocket yoke is then sewn to the skirt and pocket.
On the original pattern, the pocket piece is longer and should be folded up and attached to the yoke like this:
Here's what the skirt now looks like from the front.
With a close up of the hip pocket.
The pucker on the pocket edge is only there because the pattern pieces aren't perfectly drafted. And because I made the entire tiny skirt in about 15 minutes…
Now we get to sew that famous one seam! Please note that in the pattern there would also be a zip attached at the top of this seam after the notch. For this post, I've just sewn the seam all the way to the top.
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| There's the ONE seam, on the right hand side! |
In the normal course of events, you'd now add a waistband but for the purposes of this demonstration, we're done! Here's the skirt from the back. The proportions are a bit out, so the pockets shouldn't come quite so far round the back of the skirt.
And one from the front…
And one with a spool of thread included as a size reference, just to show you how twitchy the skirt is!
I do love this pattern, it's so well constructed and easy to sew. The pockets are a bit fiddly, but for me, they were the detail that drew me to the skirt in the first place, so they're well worth the effort. I hope that's explained things a bit clearer, and please do shout if you have any other questions.
Have a great day! x