hi everyone welcome back to my channel today i am going to show you how to make a mermaid skirt we
will be starting with the basic skirt i have a tutorial on how to draft the basic skirt but i
will be giving you the summarized version if you have not subscribed to my channel
please subscribe drop your comments while you're watching let's get to it
i already have my horizontal lines here this is the base line which will also serve as the
waistline this is the hip line and this is the length i want a length of 43 inches
this is the front pattern and this is the back pattern all right so for the waist my client's
waist is 35 divided by four that gives me 8.75 and then i'll have an extra 0.25 as ease allowance
that is 9 inches i want a dart of 0.75 on both sides making 1.5 now i am going to add 1.5 to 9
and that is 10.5 so i'll mark 10.5 on the waistline you also need your bust
span so that we will get the location of the that the burst pan is eight divided by
two that is four from the center front mark four inches and then i'll draw a straight line
now to the hips my client's hips measurement is 44 divided by four that is 11 i am not going to
mark 11 inches here like you know the back hips is larger than the front hips so i am going to deduct
0.5 from 11 and that is 10.5 now i am going to mark 10.5 inches here
now because it is going to be a mermaid skirt i want it to be a little tapered towards the
knee area right so i am going to mark from my waist up to the upper knee 19 inches
i'm going to ensure that what i have on the
knee area is going to be about 1 to 1.5 inches less than what i have on the hips
i'm going to mark 10.5 minus let's do 1.5 that's 9 inches so i'll mark 9 inches here
so whatever i have here is the same thing that i am going to mark on the hem line
now i'll connect the lines
now for the waist dart from the hip line i will measure four inches of upward
and then on both sides of the dart leg i will measure 0.75 and i'll connect it
now to complete the front come down by about half to 0.75
and then i'm going to connect the 0.75 mark to i'll blend it in around here
so if you have watched my video you will understand that the reason why i depressed
this front is because of the tummy all right now let's move to the back
this is going to be my center back i have marked the waist to hips already now i am going to mark
my waist measurement which is nine inches okay so nine plus one point five which is the dart intake
for the front that is ten point five right mark ten point five here get your bust span
her burst span is 4 mark 4 inches here as well connect the line
now for the hips remember that for the front hips i did hips circumference divided by 4 minus
0.5 now for the back hips i'm going to do hips circumference divided by 4 plus 0.5 that is 11.5
but then remember that if the difference between your waist and your hips is more than 10 you
go out of the center back by about one inch and then it is from that one inch that you'll measure
what you got what we got is 11.5 right but if the difference between your waist
circumference and your hips circumference is less than 10 you go out by 0.5 so my client's waist is
35 and her hips circumference is 44 which is 9 inches it is less than 10. so i am going
to come out of this hip line by half and not one so it is from this half that i'll mark this 11.5
now i can connect the waist to the hips and then i'll connect here as well to the new back hips now
same thing we did here for the knee area from the waist up to the upper knee is 19 inches
draw a straight line now i'm going to deduct one inch from what i have here so what i have inside
here is 11 deduct one inch i have ten so i'm going to mark 10 inches from the center back
and i'll mark the same 10 inches at the hem as well
now let's connect
i'll blend it so that i don't have any sharp edges
in order to know where i'll connect this to i'll mark about five inches downward i'll blend it in
so this is going to give us the "bum effect" blend all sharp edges
now for the waist dart from the hip line i will measure four inches upwards
and then on both sides of the dart leg i will measure 0.75 and i'll connect it
please note this is the center back this is where the zipper will be
okay guys so before i say we are done remember when we were constructing the bodice at the zipper
area the center back we usually go in by half an inch so that we can eliminate the zipper bulge
so here i'll do the same come in by half an inch and reconnect that half an inch to here
okay now i am going to add my zipper allowance one inch zipper allowance from this green line
looking at this you see that we already have that "bum effect" at the back
so this is my pattern i'm going to cut it out
and after doing that we are going to draft the mermaid pattern directly on the fabric okay
so this is the pattern that i'll be using to cut the mermaid skirt on the fabric this is the
front pattern that i have placed my fabric is on fold now it depends on how wide you want the
sides of the skirt to be i want it to be about eight inches so i'll measure eight inches from
the side of the skirt connect it this way and then from the upper knee i'm going to connect
straight down this way you can make this wider than it is right now depends on what you want
so by doing this it means that it will be tapered up to the upper knee
and then from the upper knee it's going to be wide ensure that you blend the sides
so that you don't have any sharp edges while you're sewing it
measure like one inches upward and then you blend it inward
so now while cutting on the fabric remember that i did not add any seam allowance on the pattern
so first i am going to add an hem allowance of one inch 0.5 inch for the top part for the
sides i'll add the seam allowance of 1.5 inch which was the same thing i added on the bodice
i'm still going to make a slit at the front but let me put that aside for now
so guys for the back pattern there are some things you need to put into consideration when you fold
the fabric this is the side of the back pattern remember for the front we used eight inches
so you need to have nothing less than eight inches here and then for the center back you
need to also consider the width of your train it depends on how wide you want it to be at the back
all right so for me i think i'll go for about 15 inches
okay now this is 15 inches for the side i'll use eight inches 8 inches then we are not just
going to draw it this way like a triangle the train also has to have a length okay
now from the end of the dress i'll come down by about 10 inches
draw the line straight down so you need a wide fabric
to make this please take note that my fabric is folded into two
now i am going to connect from this knee line passing through here to here
so this is my train make sure to eliminate all sharp edges
now i'll come up by about one inch from here and reconnect to this line
after that i will connect this mark to the midpoint somewhere around here
just like this so it should be like an s shape okay so this is my train
now i'll connect the knee line to here blend it
go up by one inch
this is done i'll add my seam allowances all around
i already have a zipper allowance here so i don't need any allowance here anymore i'm
going to add the side allowance i used 1.5 inches for the front
for the hem i used one inch
and this is the back panel i hope you understand
what i have drafted here so i'm going to cut it out right now
so guys this is the final look of this skirt you see there is a little alteration on the front
this one and that is because the client wants a cut-out at the front that is why it is like
this so i've done the cut-out and the next thing i have to do is to start joining the fabric together
what i'm going to do first is to take in all the darts on the main fabric and on the lining
so this is my center back here so i'm going to leave the space for the zipper from the waist
i'll measure down about eight inches leave the space and then i'll sew straight down to the train
then for the front pattern what i'll do after taking in the dart as well i'll put it
right sides facing so the right sides of the lining against the right side of the
main fabric and i'll sew this open part first the slit with a 0.25 inch seam allowance
all right i'll do that before sewing the sides of the front to that of the back