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.  

 

Shape shape 2 double layer skirt in silk

My library had a copy of Shape Shape which I took home to peruse. I've been on a mission to make a poufy double or triple layer silk skirt and I recently acquired three colours of silk.  I was initially going to do a gathered skirt in three layers, but this caught my fancy instead.

I prepped a size small despite being worried that it will be too narrow in the hips.  The measurement is only off by 1" from my measurements, but I thought Japanese patterns tend to be really tiny.  I expect to make an M in Japanese patterns, not a small.

Ugh adding seam allowances.  But the pattern is only two pieces so I guess I shouldn't fuss too much.  It uses 2 separate rows of narrow elastic instead of a single wider elastic, which I thought was interesting.  Basically in the end you have 4 separate pieces of elastic around your waist. (Good? Bad? I'm actually thinking not very good.)

I used two of my three silks: silk organza in a very light gold colour, and brown crinkled silk, heavier than chiffon weight.  Because both are relatively transparent I did french seams on the sides and on the bottom where the two fabrics connect.

This turned into an exercise in imprecision. The crinkle silk was crinkled when I cut it, but obviously stretched when sewn.  I ended up with this:

I cut off that edge!

I overlocked the waistband before folding it over, and because of my french seams I then did the two waistbands separately, folding the waist over enough to hold both, but sewing down the top one, inserting the elastic, and then sewing down the second one.  The organza could have done with a tighter fit - the elastic slips around in the casing and it does rotate.  Since there are 4 elastics which are all slipping and twisting separately, the waistband isn't that comfortable.

End result: The waistbands bother me a little, but the concept of the skirt is still pretty fun. I can wear it in four ways - I think twisted looks more interesting than straight, and time will tell if the waistbands shift around a lot with movement/life/walking.

It's hard to tell if my fabrics make the skirt large, but it's definitely big enough.  The small was fine. The crinkle silk obviously stretches a LOT, and I will admit I cut out the organza without many pins (which is still more than usual!) ...so it might have shifted.

This would be fun to make in voile, and I think fabric that doesn't need french seams is better - you can use the technique in the instructions for the waist elastic, which will lead to it being tighter and not twisting as much.

Stretch suede Colette Mabel Miniskirt & the #sewfrosting challenge

This was a project that I thought up last year while I was binge-making these miniskirts.  I had one  stretch suede skin, in this dark wine red, and I tried really hard to get all the skirt pieces to fit onto it.  I cut each piece flat, I jigsawed like mad, but I couldn't magic my pieces to fit onto one skin.  I was stumped, because the colour and texture of the skin meant nothing quite matched.

The idea languished, until I discovered a blue stretch suede skin at The Fabric Store.  I had to brainstorm how they would match up, and came up with the idea of triangles.  I finally got working on it in October but immediately lost hope yet again when I saw that my triangles were too wide - one of them fit on each skin, but I needed two per skin.

It took the #sewfrosting challenge for me to realise something sort of obvious: if you can cut a piece in half once, you can cut it in half again.  I cut each triangle of the back skirt in half, making two triangles of each colour, and remembering to add my seam allowances.  I sewed these together right away so I wouldn't mix up which piece was supposed to line up where.  And I top stitched everything in its own colour.

Two triangles of the back skirt sewn together

Entire skirt!

This project was really hard only because of my terrible sewing machine.  It was frustrating to accept skipped stitches as the status quo and to let go of the idea of perfect topstitching, but I just don't have the equipment to do better (and honestly it's not like this miniskirt is going to be worn out too fast...) I had to switch to a new extra sharp needle after every 15 inches of sewing or it would skip too much.

I also forgot a lesson that I had learnt early during my miniskirt marathon, which is that the entire waistband has to be overlocked.  I stitched it on the machine and then understitched the waistband lining and then had to undo all that.  At least it meant I got to overlock at the end and enjoy one machine that worked well!

Once I got started actually sewing this was a relatively fast project, though I took a lot of breaks due to sewing machine frustration.  

I added the pocket by eyeing where I wanted it and marking the spot with chalk.  I also measured the size of my pocket by what I'd need to fit a wallet and phone.  (truth!) Luckily I had enough fabric for that - I chose to do the blue waistband so I could do a red pocket.

in my imagination this was going to come down to a perfect point.  Hm, pretty close though!

My miniskirt is great!  It is so stretchy!  Interestingly, I get horizontal lines above the hips which remind me of trying to fit the very classic and well loved Vogue 1247 skirt (here's mine) - just like I had to shorten the Persephone pants across the pelvis, maybe I have to shorten everything on "high waisted patterns" (ie ending at the belly button) between the waist and hips.  I've never measured my rise - I think I've just gravitated towards pants that fit without making any adjustments because of being a lower rise - except for the Persephone pants which have been worth the effort.