Halfmoon Atelier Roma skirt, blast from the past

 

Suddenly saw a pool of leftover silk velvet on the floor and thought it would be a mighty fine Roma skirt.  I had a piece of fabric earmarked for it for years, but left the pattern at my parents and the fabric went to something else.  The first version took a long time to make as I didn't have an overlocker and I had a specific bias-tape related vision.  The pooling in the front was present then, but I had forgotten about it.  I don't think it lasted very long in my wardrobe.

This is truly a fast thing to make, obviously even faster if silk velvet isn't involved. I apparently made size M and seem to have shortened it approximately 8 inches.  I wrote the SA on the pattern and didn't engage with any instructions.  I overlocked the edge and folded it over, getting a bit lazy on one curve but otherwise the overlocked edge is under 1cm. On the previous version I overlapped the edges whereas this time I sewed them together but I don't think it would have changed the size much.

 

It took about an hour. Final thoughts:  that pooling in the front belly is really hideous, and the skirt pulls upward in order to create that pool.  I would need to size up even more, and it's getting silly for me to make an XL.  It's a cute skirt but not the nice fun loungeskirt I had envisioned, despite the feel of the silk.  I do think silk velvet is a great choice for this!  In fact, stretch velvet would probably work out nicely - I think this pattern would suit stretch fabrics really well although I don't have good advice on getting rid of the front pooch.  It's probably one I won't make again. 

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.