Hello and welcome back to the Pindrop Shop! This is Episode 3 of the Basic Alterations Sewing Skills Series. In this series, I am going to show you how to do some basic alteration and repair skills that you can use on your everyday clothing so we can work through all of your clothing items that have an issue, and get them fixed and get them back into your wardrobe.
Today we’re going to replace the elastic on the waistband of a skirt. This happens a lot. The elastic just gets old and loses its stretchiness. We’re going to have to remove it completely and replace it with a new piece.
You will need a seam ripper, a tape measure, skirt, a bodkin, matching thread, sewing machine, scissors, and elastic. Get the non-rolling elastic that has vertical lines, instead of the elastic that has horizontal lines. Measure the width of the original piece of elastic, and get the same size.
Next, measure your waist where you want the skirt waistband to be. Cut a piece of elastic exactly that length.
Make a note of how the waistband is assembled. On my skirt, the skirt has a separate waistband piece that is folded at the top, and the raw edge is folded under at the inner bottom seam. Yours could be slightly different, but whatever we rip out we will put back how it was.
My skirt has actual stitching going through the elastic. Some skirts don’t; the elastic just moves freely in a little sleeve of fabric. If that’s the case for you, you’ll barely have to rip any stitches. You’ll just pull the elastic out and insert a new piece and close the hole.
But if you do have stitching through the elastic this is how we will proceed. The first step will be to rip out the old elastic from the skirt. Carefully remove any stitches that are sewn into the elastic.
Get the old piece of elastic out and clean up all the threads.
Loop your new piece of elastic onto itself to make a ring that is not twisted. Overlap the short ends by 1”. Stitch down using a zigzag stitch on both of the raw edges of the elastic, reversing and sewing forward a few times.
Now we will divide our waistband into quadrants. Place a pin or clip right in the middle of the seam you just created in the elastic. This will be positioned at the back center of the skirt. Fold the elastic to find the exact opposite of the ring. Mark it with a pin or clip; this is the center front of the skirt. Do the same thing to mark the left and right sides.
Now we will divide our skirt into quadrants. If your skirt has seams at the sides or back, or if it has a tag in the center back, use this clue to mark your first point. Then use the technique we used for the elastic to find the four quadrants in the skirt opening.
Lay the elastic inside the waistband where it will be positioned. Pin the elastic to the skirt, matching up the four quadrant markers. The elastic will be smaller than the skirt, but this is correct!
Now we will begin sewing the elastic to the skirt waistband. Determine where the stitches were on the original skirt. Mine were going through the elastic about 2/3 of the way up. Position the elastic and skirt in the sewing machine with the elastic side up. Put your needle down to begin sewing at one of the quadrant points. Remove the pin. Move your hand to the next quadrant point and pull it toward you, stretching the elastic so that it is now the same length of the skirt. Do not pull it any further. The fabric of the skirt should be taut but not being stretched at all.
To avoid breaking your needle during this process, stretch the fabric from behind the machine as it comes out of the presser foot. The goal is to maintain even stretching from front to back so there is no strain or pull on the actual needle. If you do this properly you should not experience a breakage.
If there is too much distance between points to stretch them in one go, you can go back to the quadrant step, and add more equally spaced points on the skirt and waistband, to divide them into smaller pieces.
Stitch the elastic down all the way around the skirt. When you reach the beginning of your line of stitches, overlap them by a few and end with a back stitch to lock it in.
Next we’ll fold the waistband down over the new elastic. Pin it in place. If this second line of stitching also goes through the elastic, like mine does, you will have to stretch the elastic as you sew again.
Stitch this down all the way around the skirt, end with an overlap and a backstitch. Your skirt is now repaired and ready to wear.
