SPORTSWEAR LOOK
SLIT SKIRT
We had a crazy desire for technical fabric when we imagined our < slit > skirt. It was first the material that inspired us for the cut then: we wanted a comfortable cut, in a sportswear spirit, a real adventurer skirt that accompanies us every day and that we wear without moderation with a pretty knit and our favorite pair of sneakers. The long slit in the back starts just under the buttocks and will break the boyish look of the model.
MAXI VERSION
Have you opted for the maxi version of our < slit > skirt (ankle length)? First, refer to this video to see how to lengthen your skirt pattern.
Difficulty level
Quite easy. The slit skirt is accessible to sewing beginners. The material chosen for this first drop is easy to work with—contrary to appearances—and you'll have no difficulty completing your project even if you're a newbie.
Completion time
From 5 to 6 hours depending on your sewing level. You can also easily spend 7 hours if you take your time, there is no real rule! Don't put pressure on yourself, in any case your < slit > skirt will be perfect.
Seam allowances
Seam allowances are always included and visible with us. They are 1 cm here, and 1.4 cm for the side seams because we suggest you make them using a French seam. The hem at the bottom of the skirt is 6 cm.
VARIANTS
We offer you 2 stylistic options for this model:
- a classic version: minimalist (without pockets), in a sporty and casual spirit with us, using the technical fabric that we sourced from a major French luxury house
- a cargo version: with two patch pockets to accentuate the rugged side of our skirt
We also offer 2 different lengths:
- a midi version: mid-calf length
- a maxi version: ankle length
MATERIALS REQUIRED
Supplied in the sewing kit:
- The sewing pattern is printed in large format and ready to use: no need to trace the pieces. They do not overlap and the seam allowances are included. Delivered in its cardboard pouch < disclothed > paris
- The selected fabric
- A spool of Gütermann brand thread (100 m) in a color matching the selected fabric
- A 4 cm wide elastic band for the waistband
- A <disclothed> Paris sewing label, woven in the south of France
Not supplied in the kit:
- A sewing machine
- A pair of paper scissors
- A pair of fabric scissors
- An iron
- A safety pin
- A box of sewing pins
- A sewing needle
- A tape measure
- A seam ripper, just in case
FABRIC CONSUMPTION
Please note: Always allow 5-10% more than the size chart indicates - depending on your fabric's shrinkage potential. If you choose to sew the maxi (ankle-length) version, refer to the chart below.
| MIDI version | Width 1.30m | Width 1.50m |
| Size 34 | 2 m | 1.20 m |
| Size 36 | 2 m | 1.20 m |
| Size 38 | 2 m | 1.20 m |
| Size 40 | 2 m | 1.20 m |
| Size 42 | 2 m | 1.20 m |
| Size 44 | 2 m | 2 m |
| Size 46 | 2 m | 2 m |
| Size 48 | 2 m | 2 m |
| Size 50 | 2.60 m | 2 m |
| Size 52 | 2.60 m | 2 m |
| Size 54 | 2.60 m | 2 m |
Fabric consumption for sewing the maxi version (ankle length):
| MAXI version | Width 1.30m | Width 1.50m |
| Size 34 | 2.60 m | 1.50 m |
| Size 36 | 2.60 m | 1.50 m |
| Size 38 | 2 ,60 m | 1.50 m |
| Size 40 | 2 ,60 m | 1.50 m |
| Size 42 | 2 ,60 m | 1.50 m |
| Size 44 | 2.60 m | 2.60 m |
| Size 46 | 2 ,60 m | 2 ,60 m |
| Size 48 | 2 ,60 m | 2 ,60 m |
| Size 50 | 3.20 m | 2.60 m |
| Size 52 | 3.20 m | 2 ,60 m |
| Size 54 | 3.20 m | 2 ,60 m |
MOUNTING RANGE
INSTRUCTIONS
Would you prefer to read us? Find all the illustrated instructions for
sew the (maxi) skirt < slit > in the assembly range below
1. Getting Started
Let's go for a little sewing time together! Unpack your ready-to-sew kit and thread your machine with the provided spool of Gütermann thread: first fill your empty bobbin, then thread your machine, carefully threading the thread into each nook and cranny provided.
2. Cut out the pattern and the different pieces in the fabric
- Cut out each piece of the pattern using your paper scissors.
- If you opted for the cargo version, don't forget to cut out the pieces that will form the pockets
- If you want to sew the maxi version of the < slit > skirt (which goes down to the ankles), refer to the video just above to see how to modify your pattern, or go to this page for the written instructions.
- Pin each of the pattern pieces to your fabric, as detailed in the cutting plan printed on your pattern, and of course respecting the straight grain direction. We also make sure to cut the pieces "on the fold" on the fold, as well as the pieces in duplicate / several times if necessary.
- Cut out each piece of fabric using your fabric scissors this time, taking care to follow the pattern lines perfectly.
✅ Remember that seam allowances are always included in < disclothed > paris patterns, so there is no need to leave a margin around the pattern outline.
- Mark the notches on each piece using your fabric scissors (0.5 cm, no more). There is only 1 notch on the 2 half-backs and 4 notches on the pockets to make folding easier.
- Remove the pins and the different pieces of the pattern, then iron each of the pieces of fabric obtained, carefully following the care instructions for your fabric.
⚠️ For those who have opted for the complete sewing kit, there is no need to iron the fabric provided (it has the particularity of smoothing itself). When making it, you can iron it to mark the folds but be very careful with the temperature of your iron (very low temperature tolerated) because it risks melting under the effect of heat (it is a technical fabric). In general, we advise you to always test the heat of your iron on a scrap before starting your project.
3. Sewing the slit
- Place yourself on the reverse of your 2 half-backs
- Straight Half Back: At the slit, fold the 1 cm seam allowance inwards. Iron (again ⚠️ ) to mark the fold
- Fold again by 6 cm: we use the notch to help fold straight. On the top, we therefore have a filled with 1 cm (our seam allowance)
- Iron
- Left Half Back: also fold 1 cm inwards
- Iron to mark the fold
- Fold inwards again by 6 cm: again, use the notch to help fold
- We then come to superimpose our Left Half-Back (2/6) on our Right Half-Back (3/6), aligning the line that we have drawn in pink on the diagram below, and maintaining the folds that we have just marked with the iron:
- We will stitch along the pink dotted lines drawn below: start by pinning all along to hold the 2 Half-Backs together
➡️ Be careful, we don't want to immediately press the slit onto the Right Half-Back (3/6) - the diagram can be confusing. We just want to join the 2 Half-Backs at the slit. We therefore advise you, after pinning, to "fold" your Right Half-Back (3/6) over your Left Half-Back (2/6), right sides together. You get this (piece 3/6 is behind piece 2/6) and you can therefore serenely stitch only these 2 layers together:
- Sew with a straight stitch 1 cm from the edge, remembering, as usual, to backstitch at the beginning and end of your stitching.
- Cut off any excess threads
❓ How to sew a corner? It's very simple: straight stitch all the way to the corner, 1 cm from the edge of the fabric (the value of our seam allowances). Leave the needle in the fabric at this point, raise the presser foot, pivot the fabric and lower the presser foot to continue.
- Overcasting the slit: Position yourself on the zigzag stitch of your machine
- Test your stitch length and thread tension on a piece of fabric and overcast both layers of fabric at the same time.
➡️ Here we use a zigzag stitch that can be made with a family sewing machine, but for those who have an overlocker, don't hesitate to overlock your pieces instead, the result will be even cleaner.
💡 Good to know: if you are working with a fabric thicker than ours, we recommend notching at the corner to open your seam allowance and overcasting each thickness separately:
We will now place the top of our lunge on the Right Half Back:
- Pin the top of your slit to your right half back: make sure everything is flat
- Topstitch 1 cm from the edge, remembering, as usual, to backstitch at the beginning and end of your stitching. In practice, we are going back over the stitching we made earlier.
Congratulations, you've successfully sewn and assembled a slit! You now have a complete Back, which we'll now assemble to the Front.
4. Assembling the sides of the skirt: discovering the English seam
We chose to sew the sides of our skirt < slit > using a French seam:
❓ What is a French seam? The French seam is a finish that allows us to achieve a flawless finish, even on the reverse side of our garment. In concrete terms, the French seam replaces the overcasting of our pieces: it prevents the fabric from fraying at its edges, but also allows us to achieve a professional result without visible edges on the inside. It is a solid finish that lends itself well to fine fabrics.
💡 Fun fact: in Anglo-Saxon sewing, we call it a French seam and not an English seam
❓ How to make a French seam? Usually, we join 2 pieces of fabric "right sides together". After stitching, we end up with our seam allowance on the wrong side of our garment (which we can then overlock to prevent fraying). The French seam consists of first sewing wrong sides together. Then we turn our work completely over to make a second stitch, this time right sides together. This double step allows us to end up with clean edges, even on the wrong side of our work. We explain how to do it just below.
- Overlap your Back and Front, wrong sides together :
- Pin the sides of the skirt all the way, edge to edge
- Then stitch on each side 0.7 cm from the edge, making sure to make a stop stitch at the beginning and end of your stitching.
- Iron everything, placing your seam allowance on one side or the other to clearly mark the seam.
- Trim the seam allowances along the entire length of both sides, being careful not to make a hole by cutting too close to the stitching.
❓ Why trim? It is important to trim our edges: indeed, if we do not stitch perfectly at 0.7 cm all the way when we stitch (very likely), the edge of our fabric may not be well "trapped" and come out on our right side at the end. By reducing our seam allowance we are sure that it will end up on the inside after we have turned the skirt inside out and stitched its sides a second time.
💡 Good to know: there is no rule regarding seam allowances, but you will often be told to sew at 0.5 cm, then 0.5 cm for the French seam - we chose to sew at 0.7 cm, then 0.7 cm so that it is easier for beginners to sew along the edge of their presser foot. You will also sometimes be told to sew at 0.7 cm and then 1 cm: this way, there is no need to trim your edges. If you are precise enough, they will not come out on the right side after you stitch the second time.
So now we are going to sew our sides, right sides together this time:
- Turn your skirt over on itself so that the back and front are right sides together.
- Iron to flatten and bring out the side seams
- Stitch again along both sides 0.7 cm from the edge, making sure, as usual, to secure the stitch at the beginning and end
- Iron, placing your seam allowances towards the back of the skirt.
Well done! You have a perfect finish on the inside, with no fraying edges.
💡 Good to know: This finish works well with thin fabrics like the ones we provide in our kits. We don't recommend this finish if you're working with thicker fabrics, as you'll end up with unsightly excess fabric.
5. Hems: sew a "mitered" corner
- Still on the reverse side of your skirt, make a first 1 cm fill towards the inside of the skirt at the bottom in order to pre-mark the hem
- Iron to mark the fold
- Make a second 6 cm filling towards the inside, and iron again
- To sew the corner, unfold the flaps of the slit to open it.
- Fold the bias section of the bottom of the skirt in half, right sides together, and pin edge to edge. Be sure to keep the small 1 cm margin folded down on each side when pinning.
- Stitch along this line with a straight stitch at 1 cm, starting and ending with a backstitch as usual
- Finally, turn your angle over and iron to form a nice right angle.
- Do the same with the second angle
Congratulations, you have successfully sewn a mitered corner!
We will now finish the hem using a ribbed topstitch all along the hem and our slit.
💡 Good to know: depending on the fabric chosen, you also have the option of finishing with an invisible stitch, but we will not cover this method here, because the technical fabric we have chosen for this model is, in our opinion, more suited to a ribbed topstitch finish than to an invisible stitch finish.
❓ What is a pintuck? It is a decorative stitch, also called a "hair stitch" (but it's rare, honestly), which is sewn 1 or 2 millimeters from the edge of a fabric (or a fold). Beyond its purely decorative function, the pintuck can be used to reinforce a seam, flatten an area, or even hold a hem as in our case.
❓ How to make a rib stitch? We simply sew with a straight stitch, all along our fold, 1 or 2 millimeters apart. So there is nothing very complicated, the only difficulty with the rib stitch is to make it as evenly as possible in order to have a clean result (perfectly parallel to the fold / the reference seam).
- Ribbed topstitching: start on one side from the top of the slit (be precise so as not to take unwanted thicknesses of fabric), go all the way around and finish on the other side at the top of the slit again. As usual, don't forget the backstitch at the beginning and end.
➡️ If you're not confident enough to start like this, we recommend pinning everything to ensure it stays flat. For those who are more adept at using a sewing machine, feel free to start without pinning; our technical fabric is surprisingly well-suited to this task.
❓ How to topstitch corners? It's very simple: just like a regular corner, straight stitch all the way to the corner. Feel free to play with the dial to reach the exact point you want to stop at. Leave the needle in the fabric at that point, raise the presser foot, rotate the fabric 90°, and lower the presser foot to continue.
⚠️ We pay close attention to our seam allowances when we topstitch: the side seam allowances are lying down towards the back
6. The belt
We are almost there: now we are going to tackle our elasticated waistband:
- As for the bottom hem, place yourself on the wrong side of your skirt and make a 1 cm fill at the waistband
- Iron to mark the fold
- Fold again, 5 cm this time: this creates a sort of "tunnel" into which we can slide our elastic to make our belt
- Iron again to mark the folds and pin
- Leave a space of about 10 cm that we will not sew right away: this space will allow us to slide our elastic into the "tunnel" later
- We sew all around (rib again) remembering to leave our space without seams
- Cut off any excess threads
7. The elastic for the waist
- Take your elastic to measure your waist size
- Find the ideal length to obtain a waist that is neither too loose (the skirt should fit snugly around your waist) nor too tight (you should remain comfortable).
- Use a pin/safety pin to mark this location: the remaining margin will allow us to sew the 2 ends of the elastic together
- Take your second safety pin and pin it to the other end of your elastic.
🧷 Tip: This pin will simply serve as a guide to tuck all the elastic into our waistband. This is a very common sewing tip that we already showed you with our 90s scrunchies.
- Slide this end inside your "tunnel" and slide the safety pin through until it comes out the other side. Throughout this process, be sure to keep the elastic flat inside, and also be careful not to lose the other end inside the tunnel.
- Once you have gone around the waistband, bring the two ends of the elastic together at the mark we marked with the first safety pin earlier and pin them together.
- Using a straight stitch, sew a large "crossed out" square to assemble and secure. If you wish, do not hesitate to make more back and forth stitches to obtain a solid seam. Do not forget the backstitching as usual and cut the excess threads.
To sew your barred square, nothing could be simpler: follow the different steps indicated on the diagram below, playing each time with your presser foot for the angles (leave the needle in place, pivot, lower the foot), as we saw above:
- Finally, pull at the waist to make the elastic disappear inside
- All that's left is to topstitch the ribbing to close the opening we left, and that's it. Once again, we make our backstitching stitches at the beginning and end of our stitching and we cut the excess threads.
8. Cargo version: sewing the patch pockets
For those who opted for the cargo version, here is how to make the patch pockets that we designed for our < slit > skirt:
- First, make the folds of the pocket: on the right side, we use the notches that we made at the beginning and we fold according to the diagram below:
- Next, fold along the black dotted lines on our diagram, but this time backward. In practice, when you fold along both the pink dotted lines and the black dotted lines, the black dotted lines end up in the center of your rectangle:
- Topstitch along the pleats (without going through the back thickness):
- Make 2 support stitches to hold the pocket flaps in place. These two stitches will not be visible at the end because they are made with the ribbing: as close to the edge as possible.
- Do the same with your second pocket.
- Overlock the top of your "Pocket Hems"
- Assemble the Pocket Hems to the Pockets as shown in the diagram below: place right sides together, and stitch 1 cm from the edge
- Trim the top corners of your pockets
💡 Why trim corners? Trimming your corners is essential. Trimming a corner simply means "removing material" from the corner. Trimming your corner will help you turn your work properly. Without trimming, the excess material trapped inside would prevent you from achieving a clean, flat corner.
❓ How to trim a corner? Nothing could be simpler! We remove material by cutting diagonally in our fabric, as close as possible to our stitching (1 or 2 mm). Be careful not to cut too close to the stitching either, you risk making a hole.
- Turn the hem over to the other side and flatten the corners with an iron.
The seam allowances on the sides of the pocket therefore naturally fold down to the front, and we get this:
- Finally, fold down the seam allowance at the bottom of the pocket as shown below.
- Iron to mark the fold
- Topstitch the top of the pocket with a straight stitch, ribbing
- Make a second rib stitch just below: these are purely decorative stitches
- Pin the 2 pocket flaps (5/6) together, right sides together, and sew 1 cm apart with a straight stitch following the dotted lines indicated below:
- Trim your corners
- Turn your pocket flap right side out and flatten with an iron
- Overlock the top of the pocket flap using a zigzag stitch
- Make 2 decorative topstitching, ribbing, as drawn in the diagram below
- Proceed in the same way for your second Pocket Flap
9. Placement of the 2 patch pockets on the skirt < slit >
All you have to do now is position your 2 pockets on your skirt
- Identify the location of your pockets using your "Front" pattern piece (piece 1/6): position your pattern on your skirt, trying to align the contours as much as possible (as a reminder, our pattern was built including seam allowances), and place pins at the 4 corners to determine the final location of the pocket
- Put on your skirt to visualize the placement of the pockets with the pins you just placed. Adjust according to your taste if necessary.
💡 The placement of our pockets has been carefully studied to achieve a result that seems harmonious to us. That said, you may like to have pockets more or less spaced apart depending on your body shape. This is why we recommend that you always try them on to choose the positioning that is most flattering for your body. Learning to sew also gives you the opportunity to make your own custom-made clothes, so take advantage of it!
- When you are sure of your placements, pin the pockets to your skirt.
- Stitch ribbing on the sides and bottom of your pockets
⚠️ Be careful when sewing to pin only one layer of the skirt (do not take the back in the seam)
- Finally, place your two Pocket Flaps just above your 2 Pockets: we position them 0.5 cm above our Pockets
- Stitch ribbing along the flaps to attach them to the skirt
- Fold the 2 flaps down and topstitch the ribbing (twice) to keep them flat down
10. Final Touch!
- To finish your < slit > skirt, use the < disclothed > paris textile label provided
- Place it well in the center inside, at the level of the belt and pin
- Using a needle, make 4 small hand stitches at the four corners of your label. For more aesthetics, we make these stitches directly on the small flaps on the side of the label so that they do not show on the right side of the label (but we are a little control freak we grant you that)
➡️ We only sew the first layer (without crossing the elastic) so that the seams are not visible on the outside, but also and above all so that the seam does not break when the elastic is pulled
Well done !
We hope you had a good time with us.
In any case, you can be proud of yourself, you are now the happy owner of a 100% homemade skirt!
If you have any questions about this model, please do not hesitate to contact us, we are here to help you: hello@disclothed-paris.com .
Finally, don't forget to tag us on Instagram with the hashtags #disclothedbyme and #jupeslit , we love seeing your creations!
PS: If you have a closed Instagram profile, we can't see your photos even if you tag us. Feel free to share your photos with us via private message in this case!
We can't wait to see the result 🖤
