Hanbok-inspired skirt

I made a hanbok last weekend.  Originally I had wanted to hand-sew the full hanbok, but I realized it wasn't bringing me any extra happiness, so I machine-sewed it.

This weekend I decided I actually did want to hand-sew something, and I wanted something hanbok-like I could wear in public a bit easier, so I took a 1.5 yard piece of fabric, and turned it into a chima-inspired skirt:

Tied with an otkorum!

The pattern I used is exactly the same one as the Folkwear 141 pattern, but obviously much shorter, and without the shoulder straps.

I made the skirt from my 1.5 yard cut of 44-inch wide fabric.  The waistband and ties are made from remnants of a sheet I used to back a quilt.

For the 1.5 yard piece -- I cut it in half so I had two 22 x 54 inch pieces of fabric.  I cut one of those in half to get two 22 x 27 inch pieces, and cut five inches off the other to get a 22 x 49 inch piece.

Those three pieces were seamed together (longest piece in the middle), hemmed, and then pleated along the top.  The pleats took quite some time.  There was one pleat per inch, or almost 100 pleats across the top of the skirt.  Getting them even and nice-looking was by far the most challenging part of this.

After things were pleated to perfection (not perfection, actually -- more like "okay, I can live with this"), I stitched the waistband on.  Attached the ties, slip-stitched the waistband down to the inside of the skirt, and then it was done!

"Wait a second!", you may be thinking.  "Didn't you just make a rectangle?  You didn't seam up the back at all!"

Well, you would be correct if you were thinking this.

Here's what my skirt/mini chima looks like off a person (yes, that's my shower curtain I'm using as a backdrop -- don't worry about it).

Chimas are large rectangle-like pieces of fabric, where the left side wraps all the way around to the right side, and vice versa.  The ties meet in the front, and are... tied in place.  The amount of fabric used creates a large amount of volume.

I really like how it turned out, and how re-sizeable it is.  I can tie it tighter or looser, depending on how high I want to wear it (or my current weight, ha!).

I did want to add pockets, but I didn't want to put them in at non-seams.  The way the panels go on, the seams are actually somewhat on the back.  I did do some math to get the seams to be more pocket-placement friendly, but didn't have enough fabric to cut panels of the right sizes.  I would have needed an extra half yard to get the seams in the right place. 

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