Each year for the last five years, I’ve arranged a three-day sewing retreat with friends. I took along the following items for this year’s retreat, all cut-out and interfaced, ready to sew!

• An item which I classify as a long sew – Trend pattern company coat

• A medium length sew – Brittany pants

• A medium length sew – Floral dress

• A short sew – an A-line bias cut skirt

• A just-in-case project or, if I got bored of my other projects – A leopard print jacket.

The results of the weekend: half-finished skirt and trousers and a finished dress and coat.

I used to wear lots of skirts and dresses. Very few are in my wardrobe these days, so I thought it was time to make another!

I bought this beautiful poly satin from Drapers to make a bias-cut skirt. I love the drape of bias garments and wanted a bold colour skirt. At the retreat, I drafted the pattern from another pattern I had with me as I had left my A-line skirt pattern at home. As usual all the seams are french seamed.

If you want to purchase a bias skirt pattern, I recommend reading my earlier blog posts; see here.

I have had a bit of trouble with a few bias garments twisting. This can happen if the grain line is off or the bias front and back are not cut on opposite angles to each other.

To ensure this doesn’t happen, you must have one pattern piece facing up and the other facing down. This will change the angle of the bias and will result in the fabric twisting evenly on the garment. Here is a diagram which shows the correct layout.

Bias cut garments need time to hang to let the bias hem drop. I left this skirt for a week. Mr P then checked the hem length was even before hemming.

If you are a regular reader like my mum 👋 you’ll know I love bias-cut skirts. You can style a bias-cut skirt in lots of different ways. Below are some of the ways I have styled this skirt so far.

Have you made a bias-cut garment? If you haven’t, give it a go!