Here’s part two to last weeks post on pattern alterations to the 6101 skirt. It’s dedicated to adding length after a question I got through Instagram. The skirt is designed to fall above the knee, but sometimes you just want a little more coverage (getting caught over a windy subway grate is a good reason for me!). There’s a few different ways you can approach lengthening the skirt, depending on how you want it to look and also how much effort you want to put into it 😉

Adding Length

The first decision is where you want to add length: Do you want to keep the hip and front panels the same size and just increase the length of the rest of the skirt? or do you want to extend the whole silhouette?
For the first option, mark halfway down the centre front seam and the side seam. Then fold the pattern piece in half vertically so the side seam meets the centre front seam, mark the middle point on that creased line. Now join the three marks together in one horizontal line (it won’t be straight) and cut.
Spread the pieces down by however much length you want to add and secure in place. To balance the length with the volume of the flare; take the top part of the pattern piece, draw a line that extends down from the side seam. On the lower panel piece, slash along the middle crease line and spread that piece out so it fits against the continuing side seam line. Repeat the same process for the back pattern pieces. Now you’re ready to cut and sew.
If you want to lengthen the whole skirt proportionately, start by marking the halfway point on the side front pattern piece – the easiest way to do this is by folding it in half vertically so the top and bottom edges meet. Then mark it’s corresponding depth onto the centre front panel. Slash along this line and spread to extend the length. I would personally only increase this section by 1/3 of the total desired increase as the side panel are designed to fit against the body stopping just above hips/widest point of the body. Then repeat the process I described above for increasing the length of the lower skirt, but only extending it by the remaining 2/3 of your total increase.
You could get really fancy and add an additional slash line that cuts across the top portion of the lower panel and the lower portion of the centre front panel. This would extend the length of the front panel proportionately along with the length of the lower pieces. This change entails more work as you need to ensure you re-draft nice smooth curves and ensure the corresponding seam lengths match at that point too.
If you want to shorten it then you would follow the same slash and spread methods i’ve described above, but instead of extending everything down, you would overlap the pieces by the necessary amount.
Don’t forget to lengthen your lining pieces as well! The simplest way is by folding the pattern piece into thirds horizontally and slash and spread at the two points.
Make sure you keep the height of the side seam slits the same so that you don’t restrict room for movement, and if you’re lengthening the skirt substantially you may want to make french tacks to loosely hold the lining to the skirt on the inside so you don’t have too much separation.
So that’s some of the techniques you can try out.