I've always been intimidated by designing my own patterns but the other day I decided I would wing it and see what happened with a skirt I had in mind. The first thing I did was to rummage through my daughters room and find an old jeans mini skirt. I used the skirt primarily as a guide to trace out size on a piece of tracing paper. I divided the front into 3 panels and left the back as one piece and added a narrow yoke with a side zipper. What really excited me was the fact that my waistband turned out perfectly. I decided it simply could not be as hard as it looked. As I went about the task of tracing and cutting, I tried not to overthink the whole process. I would encourage anyone to make an attempt at something like this. This project was exactly what I needed to gain confidence and take me to a new level of visualizing fabric, design, and fitting.
