I Made a Skirt!

I've really been wanting to get into sewing more lately, so yesterday I put together a simple skirt with some stash fabric I got out of the remnants bin. I'm proud of it-it took me half the afternoon, and I fearlessly seam-ripped a couple of times, but I'm not super thrilled with it. Regardless, it's the first thing I've sewn in a couple years, and it's the first really wearable thing I've sewn.

I copied one of my favorite skirts-it's a handmade one I picked up in a thrift store, and I wear it at least once a week. Sadly, this fabric doesn't have as much drape as the original skirt, which was tough to tell before I sewed it up. I'm really proud that I put together four panels really well, and while the inside is kind of gross, the panels are attached with French seams, and while they're kind of rough on the inside, they are technically successful.

The hem is pretty even (if a bit stiff and awkward), and I got the skirt to fit how I wanted it. Ultimately what I'm most unhappy with is the fabric itself-like I said, it's from the remnants bin, so I really can't be too upset with a barely-successful $1.50 skirt. It was labelled "unknown," but it feels like some kind of synthetic blend. I love the color, but wearing it in this fabric feels a bit like a circus tent or parachute. It's just too stiff in the wrong places to really work.

So maybe I won't wear it much, but it was a great learning experience. I have a couple more projects lined up to try, and I know I just need to keep at it to improve. I'm a really terrible student-I hate the actual learning process and just want to skip ahead to actually knowing how to sew!

Ugh. That hem is just gross. I'd probably love this skirt a lot if it wasn't for that weird, stiff, awkward-looking hem. Any actual sewists have any quick and dirty tips for a hem that might look better? This is just plain folded up twice because the fabric will fray if you look at it sideways, but maybe I'm missing something.