Yuki Clothing

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Category Archives: Skirts


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Finished blue and white Tania Culottes

The Tania Culottes are finished and this means that I will be able to enjoy our vacation in Japan even more! It didn’t take me long to notice the difference in fashion/clothing on our last trip. The Japanese tend to wear clothes with a loose fit that actually covers their bodies to a larger extent than we do in Sweden. For example, men usually don’t wear shorts and women often wear neck-high tops (but show of quite a bit of leg). At first I was puzzled by this kind of fashion since it looked so warm, but after a while I realized that it was the loose fitting that saved everyone form overheating. Unfortunately for me, my thick denim shorts were all but loose fitting and made me sweat like a pig. Hopefully, I’ll be more comfortable in my new culottes!

After leaving it a couple of days, the hemline was all but straight...

After leaving it a couple of days, the hemline was all but straight…

Making the culottes was pretty straight forward. Like so many already suggested, I let them hang on my mannequin for a couple of days and then cut the hemline to make it even.

A new technique I tried for this project was to “stitch in the ditch”. To ensure my success, I used a bright red thread to baste the lining in place before stitching in the ditch from the face side.

More about the construction of the culottes can be found here.

Stitch-in-the-ditch.

Stitch-in-the-ditch.

Look at that circle skirt!

Look at that circle skirt!

Here's me watching ...

Here’s me watching …

sheep :D

sheep :D


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Tania Culottes – the muslin

What do you get if you take the pattern for a pair of pants and merge it with a pattern for a skirt? The answer is Culottes. Ever since I saw Megan Nielsen’s pattern for the Tania Culottes, I’ve been thinking about trying to reproduce the pattern as a small pattern making exercise for myself.

Judging by the nice fall of the skirt, I concluded that the base pattern for the skirt should be a full circle skirt. This simple sketch shows the basic pattern.

  • Start with a circle, this will be the hemline of the culottes.
  • Divide the circle into 4 parts. This is the start of two front pieces and two back pieces.
  • Make an inner circle for the waistline.
  • Remove two of the 4 parts, there’s no need to make duplicates. Also split the two left into two separate pieces. The split will become the side seam.
  • To make the skirt into shorts and to hide the crotch seam, more fabric needs to be added in the front and back.
  • After the added fabric, there should be a front and a back crotch seam.
  • Finally add a bit of length to the back piece to accommodate for the bottom.

Here’s a tiny, tiny muslin (that probably fits a Barbie doll)!

Only problem is that I really need at least one pair of culottes for our trip to Japan and time is running short. In the end, I decided to buy the pdf pattern and try it out. To my delight, I wasn’t too far off with my first sketch. The pattern is rather easy to follow but hourglass- and pear-shaped women be warned, it looks like this pattern is made for almost rectangle shaped women. For me, there was a small problem with the top of the lining. I had to take in 1-1,5cm on both sides of the two lining pieces. That’s 4-6cm in total :O

Looking rather good if I may say so myself

The Culottes are looking rather good if I may say so myself


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Black Tulle Petticoat

I’ve always wanted to have a petticoat and then it struck me, I actually got material for it somewhere deep down in my stash. I bought the material years ago and never got around to making anything out of it, until now.

As a base for the petticoat I used an ordinary black lining fabric. I cut a 3/4 circle skirt with a “waist” measurement that was large enough to fit over my hips. The fabric was then sewn to an elastic band that had a built-in frill (very convenient :) ).

At first I was planning on making three tiers of ruffles but I settled for two (otherwise it would’ve been gigantic!). The bottom tulle ruffle is attached to the fabric and the second tier is first attached to a piece of thicker and smoother tulle, which in turn is sewn to the fabric.tulle_petticoat1


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Purple pleated skirt

I made the first prototype of this skirt for a cocktail party this autumn (unfortunately, I can’t show it here… need I say more than “this is the zipper“?).

This was around the time I was watching Black Butler (again?) and first discovered SID (シド). One day when I was randomly surfing YouTube, I found this awesome live recording of SID (which for the record, is an awesome band). Mao-san, the singer was wearing a nice, three-coloured kilt-looking thing and then it hit me. I had to make a two-coloured pleated skirt! When I was done designing and sewing, a friend pointed out that it looked very steampunk. I guess that is what you get when mixing J-rock with Victorian style fashion :)

Enough about the prototype, this skirt’s made for an old classmate of mine. She really liked the prototype and asked me to make one for her as well. It’s a minor miracle that the fugly zipper didn’t put her off :) So thank you for ordering, I was really thrilled that someone actually like my design!

Purple steampunk skirt - front

Purple steampunk skirt – front

Purple steampunk skirt - inside

Purple steampunk skirt – inside