Homemade Leila skirt | colour block swing panel skirt | (Alabama Chanin remake)

Except for one line, the rest is machine made.  

Pattern drafted from the Alabama Chanin swing skirt.  

Roughly measured the percentage of each colour block on the original photo and then proportioned that onto this 28" skirt.

Used the 2xl waist and halved it for to get the approximate waist measurement, because I didn't want a waist that would be any bigger than the a.c. 2xl.

Kept the a.c. original 28" hem width.  Because it fit onto the men's tank tops that I had.

So I redrew the straight line from waist to hem.  Basically it's just a slightly modified swing skirt panel.

Technically I can fit into a m/l swing skirt but I just want it looser.   

This replica uses eight panels instead of the classic swing skirt's four panels.  I don't know what the Leila skirt is made from.  Just that the Leila has is a draw string waist and lots of swing. 

Useful template for using up the scrap pile, or up cycling tees and tanks, which this was made out of.

Had no desire to do hand sewing at all, except when it came to put the colours together, I was having difficulty finding a nice stitch that the machine could do.  The decorative machine stitches were just too heavy for the fabric and stiffed it up way too much.  So reverted to hand sewing on one line.  But I did not enjoy it for a garment that I didn't totally believe in.  No way I was going to finish this skirt in hand sewing.  So switched back to all purpose thread and gave it a big wide zig zag stitch.  Which so happens to be extremely alike the a.c. waist band zig zag stitch.  No more doing this by hand unless necessary.  (Who sees the waistband elastic anyway.)

There is nothing special about the seam allowance between each colour.  Just 1/4" as usual.  But instead of sewing them together by putting the fabric together rightside-facing-rightside, the pieces are overlapped so that the seam line of adjacent pieces are directly on top of each other.  I did need to mark this.  But because the fabric is not transparent, you mark the underneath layer with 1/2" from the edge.  Yes 1/2" is correct.  Draw this in transparency first if having difficulty to visualise.  Nevertheless the 1/2" space is a good amount to do the band of hand stitching around each colour change.  This said, you can reuse this template without needing to change the seam allowances, if you choose to sew the seams together in the more typical manners (e.g. rs-on-rs).

On the Leila Skirt, the nicest part of the detail is really where the blue crosses over to the black, because of the gold/yellow thread that contrasts.  Because I was so over the hand stitching, I used ochre thread on the machine and did the zig zag twice, over lapping them, sort of like a sin/cos graph.  Anyway, I might go over and add some gold beads or something (or not) because you can see the thread in real life but not in these photos.  I might, I might not.  Not really 100% on this skirt.  I think it has more wow factor in the photos than wearing it.  Yes, wearing it is still striking because of the bold colour contrasts, but I think I'm learning that on top of creating (a) a great design (b) it needs to really suit a person and enhance them - both (a) and (b) are experimental art.

Alabama Chanin Leila Skirt knock off

Blue is self dyed

Original a.c. description and photos

"Our pull-on Lelia Skirt is a loose-fitting skirt with a tie closure at the waist. It features a color-blocked pattern and is hand sewn in a single layer of 100% organic lightweight cotton jersey. • Measures approximately 37" [...]"