Itch to Stitch Balboa Skirt Release

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You know what I love about knit skirts? They’re super comfy and immediately make you look put together with less effort than it takes to put on a pair of jeans. And skirts are way easier to sew than jeans!

Itch to Stitch has just released the new Balboa Skirt and it comes with so many options, you may never need another knit skirt pattern again! Here are the details on this one:

• Waistband with elastic at natural waist
• 13 options:
  • No Center Seam: Straight, A-Line, Ruffled, Single Flounced, Double Flounced, Handkerchief, Maxi
  • Bias skirts with Center Seams: Straight, A-line, Ruffled, Single Flounced, Double Flounced, Maxi
  • Designed for bottom-weight knit fabric
  • PDF with layers feature

In my mind, bottom weight fabrics are on the medium-heavy side. Both of my fabrics were light-medium and look fabulous. So I think you can choose from a whole range of fabrics for this skirt pattern.

Handkerchief Skirt

I tested the Handkerchief skirt version first using the last of my royal blue ITY from my Jalie Rachel dress. It has such a gorgeous hand and is perfect for this skirt! With just two pattern pieces (the skirt and the waistband), this is a mega fast sew! It is WIDE to cut, so I had to resort to my floor for that part. My husband has promised me a new cutting table… soooooon!

To hem this one, I used Emma Seabrooke double sided fusible hem tape before stitching it in place with my coverstitch machine.

Even though I’m taller than the draft (I’m 5’8″), I didn’t bother adding length to this one, and cut based on my waist measurement only.

A-line Bias Skirt

My second one was the A-line bias skirt. I knew I wanted to use black and white stripes for this one! I’d had these Rayon-Lycra yarn dyed stripes in my stash for a while (Fabric Mart). Keeping the stripes aligned was actually easy with my walking foot! I didn’t even need pins to get it aligned (I actually almost never use pins/clips to sew). I think it helped that this fabric wasn’t super duper stretchy too.

The A-line skirt was also very easy to sew. I did find that this one seems to need a sway back adjustment though as it bubbles a bit at the small of my back — I didn’t notice that with the handkerchief skirt, so it’s probably a combination of style and fabric choice that dictates whether one is necessary.

A note about elastic

To sew either of these skirts, you’ll need a wide elastic. I just buy 2″ knit elastic in bulk from Wawak and cut it to the width I need (in this case, 1.5″), but due to the elastic shortage, they’re out of it at the moment. My absolute favorite elastic though is Fantastic Elastic from Pamela’s Patterns. She DOES have it in stock right now!

Next on my list will be the maxi skirt – I used to have a black maxi skirt years ago, but got rid of it after my toddler boy child ate a hole in it. I guess I could have fixed it, but I hate to mend. I have some lovely black modal that would be perfect.

Grab the Itch to Stitch Balboa Skirt while it’s on sale this week, and be sure to take advantage of the extra discount when you buy additional patterns! Which version will you sew first?

(Modeled with Jalie women’s t-shirt in cotton lycra from Simply By Ti)