Skirts in Seconds: Square Skirt Pattern Generator!

I've got a special present for everyone today!!!

Lately I've been working on a new project: teaching myself some computer coding! Now when I write my blog I can do fun things like use fancy font or give you a magic cursor right here. Whoo!!!!

Naturally, as soon as I unlocked my hitherto unbeknownst computer-harnessing superpowers, my first thought was to figure out how to use them to make more clothes faster. (I should say, to help YOU make more clothes faster, because writing this program definitely took longer than making a skirt ;) )

If you've been following my blog, you'll remember that near the beginning of the summer I made a dress featuring a square skirt of a specific waist measurement and length. A little while later I wrote a tutorial explaining how to put together a square skirt to your precise specifications using geometry and a calculator.

Today, the computer is going to do it all for you ;)

Go on, check it out! It's pretty cool (if I do say so myself).

Square Skirt Pattern Generator

Waist Measurement:
Waist Ease:
Desired Maximum Skirt Length:
OR Desired Minimum Skirt Length:

DIY Customized Square Skirt Tutorial (in which all the geometry is already done for you)

Hello everyone!

Last week I made a sundress that featured a square skirt (also known as a handkerchief skirt, which sounds fancier)

 and I promised that later this week I would post a tutorial. Here it is!

Making a square skirt is really easy! It's literally a square with a big hole in the middle for your waist. The corners of the square create long, bias-cut triangles that can give your gown a dreamy and ethereal look.

Here's a line drawing for a square skirt, adapted from the line drawing for Anna Sui's Vogue 2968

This tutorial is based on the assumption that you want a skirt that will fit a certain waist measurement and be a certain length (either at its highest or lowest point). From there you can come up with a pattern that fits your specifications.

Let's get started!

Sunset Dress

It's summer! And as you can probably tell from the setting of my most recent blog posts, I'm enjoying it.

I love summer sunsets. The quality of the light in the late, late afternoon, when the sun has mellowed out from its bleached, midday glare but is still powerful enough to drench everything in a rich, coppery glow, has this beautiful, latent energy that reminds me why I look forward to summer so much.

That was the inspiration for this dress.

My fabric

I remember being hesitant about buying this piece, because I have an automatic (and, I know, undeserved) bias against orange fabric. I don't really find orange a pretty color, and I can't imagine that as a color family it goes well with my skin tone, and it just seems a counterintuitive choice. And yet I keep finding myself drawn to orange textiles.Orange is a very rich color, especially when mixed with other shades, like gold or magenta, when it can take on the natural, luminescent gradient of the sunset.

As you can see along the fraying edge, this gentle tangerine color is created by weaving orange threads in one direction and yellow threads in the other.

This specific fabric is an orange chiffon. It's delicate, but resilient at the same time. The threads are interlocked so loosely that the fabric had the tendency to snag or leave visible holes if I had to remove a seam, but by gently massaging it I was able to pull the threads back into place and it looked as good as new.

The fabric is composed of two different colored threads running opposite directions, which give the textile a beautiful multi-hued sheen. Depending on the angle at which you view it, it can appear fiery dark orange or shiny yellow. It makes the color (and the slight sine of the textile) very dynamic.

The orange chiffon with the lining fabric under it

After buying this fabric, the design of the dress fell miraculously into place. I was driving home with about three new textiles to add to my stash, none of which I had a very good idea what I would do with, and discontent with having beautiful unassigned fabric, so I dreamed up an ideal garment to go along with my orange chiffon.

Sparkly Springtime Separates

There's this event at my school called Founders' Day. It's this big schoolwide ceremony that is deemed so important that the students are instructed to forsake their uniforms in favor of semi-formal "mass dress".

Lots of people "hate" Founders Day, because we get out late and you have to sit through an outside mass with all its unpredictable weather. I pretend no such reserve. If I can wear something I've made to school, I'm sold!



I realized two days before Founders' Day that the garment I had been planning on wearing instead was asking to be stopped by the deans on account of "modesty". Under other circumstances I might have braved spaghetti straps, but not bright yellow ones.

Here's a conversation between me and mom about this grave issue.

Me: My yellow Cynthia Rowley dress won't work, it's got exposed shoulders and it's too short.
Mom: What are you going to wear, then?
Me: Um, that sparkly green Anna Sui blouse.
Mom: *Gasp* You have fabric to make a skirt to go with that! You haven't made it yet!
Me: Yeah, well, that's ok. I'll wear the blouse with some nice pants.
Mom: When is Founders' Day?
Me: Tuesday.
Mom: That's in TWO DAYS!!! You have to get started!!!
Me: Well I don't really have time, I have homework and I'm making you a pie for your birthday.
Mom: Forget the pie! Forget homework! You should make that skirt!
Me: But I want to make you a nice dessert! And I don't really have the pattern figured out!
Mom: Leave those limes and get started for the Love of God!

I love my mom :) We have the same sewing sensibilities.

As you've probably gathered if you read the above dialogue, this outfit is not a dress, it's actually separates. The whole outfit together is actually cobbled together from FOUR different patterns :O

The main blouse is an Anna Sui pattern that I made a while back at the end of summer, shortly after purchasing this SUBLIME sparkly sea-green silk chiffon.