DIY Floral Viscose Midi Skirt with Split

Last year I made myself a viscose midi skirt which quickly became one of my favourite summer makes. At the time the midi-length wasn't something I'd worn before and so was a little out of my comfort zone, but the emergence of longer RTW skirts on the high street meant that I soon got used to the style. Because of how much I loved wearing the green skirt I thought I'd make another one this summer in exactly the same style but with a different fabric.

My favourite thing about viscose fabrics is the sheer number of pretty designs there are to choose from. When I first started sewing with viscose I stuck to more simple designs like this black fabric, but floral fabrics have become really popular and I wanted to make something a bit bolder. I found this orange viscose at Fabric Land on a trip intended to purchase the fabric for my jumpsuit. I thought it would be perfect to make another midi-skirt and, although I wasn't fully convinced by the orange flowers, I really liked it and decided to get a metre of it. Now that I've turned the fabric into a garment I'm really glad I bought it. There's a chance it could have been a bit much as a dress, but as a skirt which I'll pair with a white or grey top it's really fun. 

I went into more detail on how I made this skirt in this post, but in summary it's a hack of the skirt pattern that my prom dress is made from. The skirt without a bodice and made in a more casual fabric looks completely different to the dress and I'm really pleased to have made the most out of the pattern. I like to use the same pattern over and over with different hacks which can be harder to achieve when the pattern is for a special occasion, but with a bit of pattern hacking a completely different garment can be made from the same base.

This particular skirt pattern is quite loosely fitted, making it very comfortable to wear. Darts at both the back and front help to fit it well and I also added in a split on one side. When it came to my prom dress I initially hacked the skirt pattern to have two seams running up the front skirt, one sewn all the way and one with a split. To keep the viscose skirts simple (and to avoid disrupting the print) I cut them with only one seam in the front skirt which is used to create the split. 

This skirt is sewn in exactly the same way as the green one, with bias binding to finish off the top. Because this skirt pattern was intended to be joined onto a bodice to form a dress there wasn't an obvious way to finish the skirt. I could have added a waistband but with such a lightweight fabric it wouldn't have looked right. The bias binding gives the skirt a really neat finish without disrupting the pattern lines, the waist seam is simply folded over by 1/2".

I actually made this skirt a little too late into the summer to get much wear out of it this year, but I'm looking forward to rediscovering it again next year. Having enjoyed wearing the green skirt I'm glad to have another one in my wardrobe, and whilst the two have the same design I think the fabrics make them look very different.