I thought I might persevere with Vogue 1202, so I started to cut out the pattern for the skirt.
And then I realised that there is no space in my house large enough to lay out the pattern. And that if the giant pattern piece has to be laid on the fabric sideways, the stretch in my chosen fabric is in fact going the wrong way.
Never mind.
I’ll find something else to do with three metres of wet-look lycra, I’m sure.
Butterick 4731, perhaps.
I’d been thinking about making myself a floaty black skirt for a while. My seersucker skirt‘s been worn almost to death, so I thought I ought to have a backup plan for the day it comes out of the washing machine in pieces. I’ve been waiting for this to happen for months, thankfully the fabric’s more resilient than I’d thought!
This time I wanted a more floppy skirt, full and drapey, with an asymmetric hem. I looked at patterns, browsed through fashion magazines, and eventually had a brainwave in the middle of the night. This is made from my simple circle skirt pattern… only instead of rounding off the hem of each quarter piece, you just leave it as a square! So it’s effectively four squares sewn together, with a little shaping at the top for the waist.
As usual it has pockets in the side seams, and my trusty elastic waistband. The edges were done very simply on the overlocker, because I didn’t want to make hems that might spoil the soft draping of the very thin cotton lawn. I’m not sure this would work as well in a heavier fabric (even a shirt-weight cotton might be too much), so next time I’d like to make one with two layers. If I offset the points at the hem I think it could look really pretty, especially if I went for contrasting colours.
The only problem with using a fabric as lightweight as lawn for a skirt (aside from it being a bit chilly if you happen to live in a country that’s apparently not having a summer this year) is that it creases like crazy! This skirt was beautiful when I took it off the ironing board (yes, believe it or not I did iron it!), but within seconds of putting it on it was all wrinkly again. I think I’m going to have to adopt the same approach as I have to linen, and simply not mind looking a bit crinkly around the edges.
You might have noticed that this is made to roughly the same pattern as the black linen dress. This time the ruffle’s a bit shorter, but that was mostly because I’d almost run out of stripy fabric. The body of the dress is a little longer to compensate. The hem is trimmed with one layer of wide flat lace, and another of red gathered lace to provide a little bit of extra fullness. The butterfly sleeves are simply overlocked at the edges, and the beaded trim matches the skirt.
Here’s how they look together – rather smart, I think! The plain red doesn’t exactly match the stripes, but I think they’re close enough that it doesn’t matter too much. The petticoat doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to the fullness of the skirt because it’s much too narrow, so you probably won’t even see the two layers of lace. The attention to detail makes me feel better about the outfit though, so it’s worth the effort.
The title says is all really – this is Simplicity 2207, my striped steampunk skirt!
Somewhat eye-bending, but I knew the stripes on the skirt would end up going in all directions, so I deliberately placed them vertically on the front and horizontally on the ruffle.
Both edges of the ruffle are finished on the overlocker, with the “raw” edges left visible. Over the gathered join is four metres of beaded trim, with four metres of braid stitched over the top. I think I spent more on the trimmings than I did on the fabric!
(This was sadly evident as I was sewing – the black stripes are printed rather than woven, and I ended up with very grubby hands. Yuk.)
I attempted to put pockets in the side seams, but that turned out to be a lesson in reading the entirety of the instructions before you start. The waistband has a somewhat unusual construction, so the two sides of my pockets didn’t match. Not wishing to rip out all the overlocking and start again, I simply chopped off the pocket pieces and pretended I didn’t want pockets after all.
The back of the skirt is twice as full as the front, and has an elasticated waist. I have a horrible suspicion that, despite measuring, I’ve cut the elastic a little bit too short. Thanks to the waistband construction I can’t easily get in and change it, so for now I’ve adjusted my dress form to be a little bit bigger than me, in the hope that it’ll stretch out a bit before I wear it. Fingers crossed.
Starting to work with the organic cottons again reminded me that I’d already put together some designs for skirts that were very similar to the blue cotton tunic dress. Large pockets and a ruffle, although I think I’d go for an elastic waistband rather than darts and a zip.
I drafted these little sketches way back in 2008, when I was also going through a phase of buying lots of recycled fabrics, mostly in the form of duvet covers. I thought I could use the matching pillowcases to make the ruffles and pockets, and do you know what? I think that might just work! Why it’s taken me three years to get around to doing anything with this idea, I’m not so sure.
I have four colours of organic cotton left in the stash – blue, green, pink and cream. My favourite place to buy organic cottons has a special offer on pot-luck remnant pieces, so I might buy a bundle and see what turns up. That, along with the Kaffe Fassett fat quarters, should give me plenty of choices for contrasting waistbands and pockets.
To go with the silk corset, I made a satin bustled overskirt. The idea was to have something that could be worn over several different skirts, and could be varied in style.
The top layer is from Simplicity 2207, with a bit of modification. Instead of using a single layer, I doubled the fabric to give a bit more volume. Rather than making ruffles, I gathered a pretty wide lace along the centre back and the lower edge.
The under layer is made from two widths of fabric joined together in a french seam and gathered in to the waistband. Left rectangular, all the edges were trimmed with the same wide lace, and then the sides were gathered tightly to create the draping at the front. The whole thing simply ties around the waist.
In between the two layers, below the waistband, are several plastic rings. These correspond with ribbons sewn onto the skirt. The ribbons can be pulled through the rings and tied in place to create different bustle effects, or left loose to create a train. I used six metres of satin in total, but because it’s such light fabric you get a lot of volume without too much extra weight.
The skirt, corset, pirate shirt and waistcoat all took a trip to the Summer Darkness festival, and I’m hoping to be able to show you some action photos soon!
Right back at the end of last year, my Mum gave me a length of fabric for a new summer skirt. It’s made using my basic gathered skirt instructions, with modifications to the waistband. Instead of being elasticated all the way round, the waistband is flat at the front with the skirt gathered into it. The back of the waistband has elastic running through it as normal.
I also made two round tablecloths, which I simply hemmed using the overlocker. They were cut from a single size bedsheet, simply because it was the only fabric we could find in the right colour.
(You can also see that I made this before I had my great big clear-out in the Shed. Excuse the mess!)
So, this is a bit of a departure from the type of thing I’ve been sewing lately – in fact it’s a skirt pattern that came from my first business, about eight or nine years ago.
There are four layers of skirt altogether, each with four panels for fullness. The inside three layers are black net, trimmed with red gathered lace. The top layer is skulls-and-roses print cotton, trimmed with the very last piece of black gathered broderie anglais in my stash. Fabric Land haven’t had any of this in stock for a long time, and I don’t quite know what I’m going to do without it. It really is absolutely my favourite kind of trim.
(Is it silly to have a favourite kind of trim? I do, anyway.)
The waistband is another favourite – red bomber-jacker elastic, also from Fabric Land. it’s made in the same way as all of my elasticated skirts – simply divided into quarters and zig-zagged into place.
I haven’t worn a skirt this short for years – in fact I’m not at all convinced that it’s actually long enough to cover my bottom, or that a person of my advancing years should be seen in it at all. I suspect I will be very grateful indeed for a pair of black leggings to wear underneath!
Today I have been mostly sewing an outfit that I planned almost a year ago, when I was offered my current job. I bought three men’s shirts from Marks and Spencer (lilac, pink and lemon), and bought some poly-cotton and broderie anglais trim from Fabric Land to make three matching petticoats.
Here’s the first petticoat – a variation on my usual elasticated skirt. I lengthened the pattern to just below the knee, and then added a 10″ ruffle with a matching broderie anglais trim.
The skirt is made in four panels, and had pockets in the side seams. The waistband is attached in exactly the same way as the petticoat, and the hem is trimmed with gathered broderie anglais. I’m not sure what the fabric is, except that it’s a nice heavy suiting weight. It’s most likely polyester, although the weave looks a little bit like dense linen. (This is what happens when you have a fabric stash that goes back more than a decade – sometimes you can’t remember what you’ve bought!)
I have a pretty lilac sash belt that I can wear if I decide I don’t want the elastic to show, but I actually like the fancy elastic so I don’t mind if it’s visible.
Now I want to knit myself a black v-neck tank top, although that might be pushing the slightly schoolmistressy look a bit too far. We’ll see.
This is Vogue 1170, another Rachel Comey pattern. I actually made this one first, and it inspired me to try the pink party dress.
You might recognise the design of the back – it’s pretty much identical to the dress, including the not-invisible zip! (This one wasn’t supposed to be invisible, but it should still be less visible than this.) I didn’t bother with the hem facing on this one – because the velvet has a slight stretch to it, I exaggerated the flared hem by simply stretching the fabric as I ran it through the overlocker.
You can’t really see the details on the front, but the skirt has the same angled seams as the dress. It also has tiny little pockets, hidden in the seam of the waistband. I don’t know that I’d bother with those next time. Normally I’m all in favour of pockets, but they were fiddly to make and they’re too small to hold anything useful!
You’ll just have to trust me that this one looks much better on a real person with a real bottom, than it does on my dress form.
