Skirts on Sunday

For my birthday last year my husband gave me a generous 50€ gift card to one of my favourite fabric shops in Berlin. I saved it up for a while but burnt it all on summery fashion fabrics to enhance my skirt closet. With my superior, cough, math skills I managed to buy fabric for three skirts and even squeezed matching thread out of my gift card.

One awesome thing about fashion fabrics is their width of usually 140 cm/ 55 inches. If you're making knee-length, gathered skirts out of a non-directional print one metre will serve you more than well because you can cut up the fabric vertically into two 1 metre x 70 cm panels. But 80 cm or 32 inches were actually enough for me to create a nicely gathered skirt for my 40 inch hip. The difference can easily be used for a yoke.

The first skirt I made was a simple elasticated one, no yoke, out of an adorable brown floral.

It's simple enough to work with two rectangles and tutorials for this style abound on the net. It is slightly trickier to find just the right width for the encasing. If it's too wide you elastic will be all loose and twist a lot. If it's too tight it bunches up - if you get it all the way through, that is.

With this skirt my encasing was too wide, so it tends to twist a lot. It's manageable, however, if you sew down your fabric in the seams. That way you also ensure that the same amount of fabric (and gathers) will be in the back and front without you having to check up on that everytime. Also, there are better ways to finish an encasing than making a bulky seam. I've learned that by now.

My standard French seams.

A simple hem to finish a simple skirt.

I'll be back next week with the second gift card skirt.

Happy sewing!

Skirts on Sunday

This skirt is the first that I consider a failure though it's looking inconspicuous enough, no?

I made it late last spring using the yoke of good old Burda 8176. For the body I mad my own calculations. Having worked with quilting cottons on two previous skirts I felt somewhat safe in my choice. The fabric, however, was a lot stiffer and despite a gut feeling I hoped that once sewn up it'd all fall into place never materialised.

 

I used some favourite scraps from my first skirt project to line the yoke. You can see a lot of pulling on the pleat seams. It doesn't look as bad in this snap of the right side but it's still present.

I encountered a lot of trouble handling the fabric. It's a pain to iron, too. Here's a better snap of the disaster, featuring the hidden zipper and yoke. And to think I redid that zipper multiple times as well as trying to fix the yoke.

Even the hem decided against playing along and favoured puckering.

I wore this skirt exactly once because it simply doesn't hang nicely. I washed it several times hoping that'd make some of the stiffness go away but it didn't happen and it certainly didn't make the pulling go away. Defeated by fabric. It's exactly the disastrous project that many fashion sewists will have in mind warning you about using quilting cottons for clothing.

I still like the print but I'm not even sure I'd want it in a quilt because it doesn't have the hand I've got used to. For the moment it will stay in my closet to remind me to trust my gut feeling concerning drape but I might cut it up in the future if the right project comes along. Thanks to my previous experiences it didn't scare me off of using quilting cottons in non-quilty projects and simply became a valuable lesson learnt.

Happy sewing!

W.i.P. - Going Away/Home Soon

Eek, only three more sleeps! Taking the train to my love on Saturday. I so can't wait to take him into my arms again. Da-da-da-daa da-da-da-da-da da-da-da-daa da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaaa da-da-daaaaa da-da-da-da-da-da-da daaaa daaaa. Yep, it's the final countdown!

He's been living between and out of boxes for nearly three weeks now. Can't expect him to unpack much whilst working full time, can't expect him to feel at home in that mess, either. I'm so glad my sister has offered to come along and help us settle in quickly rather than unpack as we go.

Anyway, let's forget about the move for a moment. Do you remember my tin?

I've been basting nearly all of them whilst watching Horrible Histories - my husband and are enthralled with the show - with my lovely hosts. We've got another season to go, so they should all be done in time to keep my hands busy on the train and then on our sofa with a nice glass of red. So looking forward to that scenario, too.

Alas, no progress has been made on the Viking baby quilt. I didn't have the leisure (and state of mind) to hand quilt. The baby's due in a little under a month now which is still ample of time to finish the beauty. Right?

So, without further ado, here are my

Stats for the Week

The Move  - Unpacking is upon us!

Ongoing Projects - 4
Viking Baby quilt -  more quilting needed
EPP hexies - 29 finished flowers + tons basted
Polaroid blocks Tote - will it ever get made?
EPP parallelograms/stars

Planning Stage - 4
Chair cushions for my sister - yardage has arrived
Yoshi quilt- need to order black yardage and batting
Wedding Anniversary quilt
Cushions for my sil - I think she ordered some lovely Ink & Spindle a few weeks ago

Back onto moving, a whole bunch of troubles with moving are...telephone companies. They've not yet got us on the net and might not for a while. Typical, sure, and still... Major boooooo! So, unfortunately, I might not be posting news for a bit. I have, however, prescheduled a few Skirts on Sunday to keep this place alive and will be back sooner or later to let you know I'm alive. Answering comments should be delayed after Friday but won't be forgotten.

Granted, I'm still sad to leave many people behind but I'm all excited now.

Happy sewing!