Skort, Culottes, Gaucho Pants – Tomaeto Tomahto

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Skort, Culottes, Gaucho Pants – Tomaeto Tomahto

by Melissa Watson Friday, August 12, 2016

But… what is a Skort?

They’re in between a skirt and a pant and basically the best bottoms you can wear this summer… and it’s time to embrace them because it doesn’t look like they are going anywhere this fall! Designers are loving them on the runway and WE are loving them in this summer heat! They are very flattering for any body, especially if you are curvy. With the princess panels this style is very easy to tissue-fit and make the seams curve where you curve! This is a great style in a flowy rayon crepe or cotton/rayon jersey.

For more tissue-fitting goodness, with the Palmer/Pletsch method, see my video guide below for complete instructions on tissue-fitting this skort!

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Pati’s Word

I love the pattern that Melissa designed. She calls it a skort, which is a fusion of a skirt and pant. She looks adorable in the short version, which would also make a good pair of shorts for anyone. The fuller leg makes your thighs look smaller.

There are eight vertical leg seams making fitting easy. We call it a princess skort with seams down the center of each front and back leg. I recommend machine basting all of them for your first fitting. If everything is fine go back and serge the seams. If you don’t own a serger, sew on top of the basting and ¼” away and trim to the second stitching.

The skort has a shaped waistband, but I created a casing and inserted elastic instead.

Melissa Watson’s McCall’s 6965 Culotte Short and Pant

The first pair I made was out of a lightweight cotton lawn. It was so light it didn’t drape very well. There is a lot of ease in the hip area, which ballooned out rather than draping sleekly along my body curves. I took the side seams in 1½” from the hip to the hem.

My top is from our new knit top/dress pattern McCall’s 7092.

My second skort is from a poly/rayon/spandex interlock knit. I had to cut the pant on the stretchier crosswise grain so the black border was at my hem. After cutting it out, I machine basted all of the seams and tried it on.

This fabric is weighty and has great drape. I didn’t remove any fullness and it just skims my body, adding no width. But, with the stretchiest direction going up and down, and with the crotch seam holding the weight of the entire skort, it grew a lot in length! The crotch became too long and the black border puddled on the floor.

I pulled the skort up until the crotch was nearly touching mine. It wasn’t enough since the black border was still draping on the floor. Then I decided to sew the crotch lower by the amount I needed to raise the hem. I lowered the crotch a total of 3”.

Then with 1” elastic around my waist placed over the skort fabric, I pulled up the skort until the hem was level all the way around. I marked the new sewing line for the casing at the bottom of the elastic. I cut off the excess not needed for the casing. After permanently serging all of the seams and finishing the casing, I sewed Stay Tape into the crotch to keep it from growing further. Knits with rayon content will continue to grow in areas of stress if you don’t stabilize them. I wanted the border to be as wide as possible, so I left the bottom un-hemmed. The knit won’t ravel.

A smart tip from
Looking Good Every Day:

Author Nancy Nix-Rice advises in the book that black is a harsh color for most women, and it is not my best color. It overpowers me because I have so little contrast in my personal coloring. Yet the print of the skort includes my hair color, thus “connecting” the print to me and softening the harshness of the black. I love this print!