Summer is approaching and I'm itching for more skirts. For me, the perfect summer skirt is cotton, A-line, in a cute print that matches various tops, not too tight at the waist and definitely not frumpy. Most of the time, I find my Perfect Summer Skirts at thrift stores, but with the dearth of affordable second-hand clothes in Japan alongside the proliferation of cute fabrics, I decided it was time to try my hand at sewing my own skirts.

Despite its cheesy name (and does anyone else feel like that should be a question mark instead of an exclamation point?), Sew What! Skirts is exactly the kind of how-to book I needed. It takes you step-by-step through the process of drafting a pattern for and constructing a skirt, in a tone that is casual without being cloying and detailed but not overwhelming. While I could have just bought a couple simple skirt patterns and made a lot of versions of the same two or three skirts, it wouldn't have been nearly as flexible or creative as having the basic formulas for many different skirt elements which I can put together any way I like. Elastic waist, drawstring, wrap or zippered? One ruffle or five? There are guidelines for making nearly any skirt style you can imagine and recommendations for tailoring patterns to your personal preferences.

Not that I'm at the ruffles and zippers stage yet. My sewing experience up to this point had been limited to totebags, pillows, and an apron for my gentleman. For my first skirt, I wanted a basic elastic-waist, A-line skirt made of a light cotton, the kind of thing that would be comfortable to wear around the house on sticky summer nights, but attractive enough to wear out of the house as well. The seersucker fabric printed with flowers and leaves I bought while on a fabric-buying binge last weekend seemed perfect. With all the steps carefully laid out for me, I had no problem putting everything together and only made a mistake in the hemline curve of my pattern, which I was able to fix without incident.

The finished skirt isn't perfect, but it's just what I was looking for, and I know what I need to do to make the next one even better. I'm actually kind of looking forward to conquering my first zipper. My only complaint about the book is the artfully out-of-focus pictures used for a lot of the finished skirts, which made me feel like there might be something weird about the way they actually fit. There are clear (but much smaller) pictures of the skirts on a dummy, but I would have liked to see the skirts out and about and not uselessly blurry. Also, a few of the skirt styles are definitely not for me -- I'm not a organdy-over-brocade kind of girl -- but all the patterns are so flexible, it seems simple to change them into something that doesn't remind me of eighth grade dances. Additionally, if you're a super-experienced seamstress, this book is probably too basic for you, but it is perfect for a beginning or intermediate sewer addicted to skirts like me.

(If you do buy the book, be sure to join in on the Sew What! Skirts sewalong on Flickr.)