Pattern Emporium Tiered maxiskirt in Liberty

 I first encountered this skirt when I saw my friend Tessa's version.  I've never been very into skirts.  Like, I own the same few and wear them occasionally but they aren't that comfortable and rarely have pockets so why bother?  The few I have are really great and that's sort of it, right?  

Hm.  Well, I realised a big problem was that my legs rub together.  So this summer I decided to solve the problem with long leg boyshorts with lace hems, so I could wear my skirts.  (More on those later).  And it made skirts suddenly seem like a more viable option (especially if they have pockets.)  

This does not have pockets, but that is easily fixed.  And after thinking for quite awhile I decided I was ready to cut into my number 2 longest stashed fabric: a Liberty Tana Lawn in my Favourite Print Ever Made.  In order to do that I had to do a practice version, because I have never shirred and I was not sure how the shirring would go.  

Spoiler alert: the shirring went Very. Poorly.  

Sorry it was very windy when I took these photos, plus midwinter so rather cold. 

I cut a size 10 and used some very fancy Liberty silk twill that has been sitting around - this is for my friend R and I knew she would love the colours and would not care too much about the shirring.  What is discovered is that although in one spot I read to NOT pull tension when you wind the shirring elastic onto the bobbin, actually you DO need to pull a moderate amount of tension.  All the shirring does not really suck together and just looks like weird loops on the inside of the skirt.  Luckily there's a piece of elastic in the waistband as well so this first version is wearable and the silk twill is delightfully swishy.  I was on a time crunch so I forgot to take notes on things I would change the second time around...

So after waiting far too long and not remembering anything I learned from the first version, I made my Liberty Special.  I think I wanted to shorten the middle tier 1" but I didn't do that.  I did add very large pockets. 

 

I obviously practiced shirring in the meantime and got better at it.  I didn't have any issues making this skirt, it's an easy make.  I like my huge pockets and I like the way it drapes.  

 

Vanessa Pouzet La Boheme skirt review

I saw this and I was so sucked in!  I have needed ("needed") skirts lately after many years not wearing skirts, and trying to figure out what I want in a skirt has been a challenge.  Well, this was it.  I read all the blog posts.  The two in English insisted that it's easy and also one of them said she has written English instructions and sent them to Vanessa - but my email asking about these never got a reply. Like everyone who speaks a few romance languages I can piece together some French, but it doesn't make the sewing process easier.

Overall I would say the instructions made sense to me, but I glossed over them, and my errors and dramas are more likely due to me than to the instructions failing.  

I cut size 38 from a lightweight cotton I had been saving for a Wilder Gown (the ONLY FABRIC in my stash that I had in 3m).  I cut 3" off the bottom.  My notes suggested I would want to take off anything from 3" to 15 cm and I went with the minimum.

The almost mistake I made is that you cut two identical side pieces AND 2 snail pieces - I initially thought just one, but I did have enough fabric for the second.  PLUS two full width waist pieces, but the truth is the length of those doesn't matter as much. The shape of all these pieces is what eats up fabric, and that's a harbinger of the sewing experience.  

I found the sewing to be exhausting.  However, I was having an exhausting week, and this skirt which really is about a 3hr effort took me a week and was FULL of drama.  I planned to french seam the whole thing.  No prob, seamed the back, applied the waistband just to avoid stay stitching - ALREADY I was setting myself up to fail.

The hem of the ruffle - either don't hem this, or use a skinny rolled hem foot.  I don't have that foot for my Pfaff.  I am going to fix this.  So I did a manual skinny rolled hem.  It sucked. It doesn't look that great.  It took forever because it's many meters of sewing and on a constant curve.  This skirt is all about sustained sewing.  You only actually go to the sewing machine something like 5 times, but each time you are sewing many meters long and it's funny how tiring that is.  So then I french seamed the ruffle (it's not actually a ruffle, it just behaves that way due to the grain it's cut on, so clever!) to the skirt, this was a BAD CHOICE.  I realised after all that, that I didn't have a way to finish the upper side of the skirt.  In fact I was upset because I thought the ruffle should go all the way to the waist.  I think the instructions do specifically instruct you to do the following: 

-(don't sew on the waistband first)

-sew the ruffle to the skirt 

-overlock or finish that seam all the way from waist to waist 

-iron it upwards towards the skirt

-topstitch

Then you can apply the waistband.  

If that's not what the instructions say, they should.  

I kept trying this skirt on and being grumpy and realising it looked really good despite all this drama.  And that was when I faced a trying fact of life and sewing: sometimes you just need to do a muslin.  This was my muslin.  Thank god for my friend who I send clothes to....no muslin ever goes to waste.  So before I finished the skirt I was piecing together the next one in my mind.  Other key feature: linen so I don't have to finish the hem.  And I will shorten it another 3". 

 

The rest of the skirt was simple, you have been instructed to fold the SA up already on the waistband and you just topstitch it all together, then make a buttonhole wherever you want so that one waistband goes through the other.  I did put some interfacing on my buttonhole area before I shut the waistband.  And yes, I love the finished skirt, at least the idea of it.  In fact I don't think the ruffle should go all the way to the waist, it would add some annoying flopping around near the top, whereas the way it's drafted the front lies flat.  On mine I will add Pomona pockets.  I have even managed to go to The Fabric Store in person (!!) and swanned around through all the linen until I settled on a dark fir green, so that will happen soon.  I'm happy with the size, there is a great amount of overlap, and the ruffle on the underlayer sort of holds the top layer in place so they are less likely to split open - even when they do I think you can't see much higher than my knees.