My last project before we went on vacation. This one probably took twenty minutes from the idea to the finished item. This is one of my favourite skirts; it's a cotton linen blend twirly skirt and it had gotten a little too small. Not so small that it actually didn't fit - that's one of the nice things about twirly skirts - it just sat a little high. On other old skirts I find this fine but this one had a really wide waistband and I didn't like the way it was always running into my ribs.

I put on my skirt and marked where I would like the waistband to be, cut off the extra fabric (cutting right through the zipper), cut a long 2 1/4" binding strip from some cute fabric, folded it in half and sewed it along the cut edge of my skirt. I pressed my seam, folded the binding around to the back and sewed again in the ditch to secure it.


Voila, a much more comfortable skirt. The zipper is still kind of short (this skirt goes on over my head) and I might get around to replacing it sometime but it doesn't really bother me much.

Sadly the whole time we were on vacation it was very windy so this didn't get worn but I know it will see use this summer.

First, an apology for going on vacation without letting anyone know when I’d be back. I’d meant to make a post but ran out of time.
 
Second, How do you like my new skirt?
 
This is the brown linen blend that I’ve had for so long. I used the basic skirt pattern from Sew U and made it an inch wider (for more flare) and an inch shorter (to fit on my chunk of fabric). The skirt is fully lined with cotton lawn and finished at the hem with a length of vintage eyelet lace that was very kindly given to me (along with many other pieces which I’ll post about sometime soon) by Samera’s mother.
 
While I was cutting I noticed that the linen frayed rather badly so all the seam allowances are completely enclosed and I did the same for the lining - you will not find any raw edges on this skirt. The lining, lace hem and enclosed seams (meaning several lines of stitching) give the skirt a more defined shape than I’d originally anticipated. It stands out a bit instead of falling straight down. I wasn’t sure about this at first but after wearing my skirt a bit I like the way it keeps it looking a little tidier. The linen creases terribly - and irons correspondingly beautifully - and I think the lining helps minimize the wrinkling.

 
Since the hem detail doesn’t really show up in the picture above I thought I’d put in a close-up shot showing off the pretty lace. I love the little flowers.

 

 

I worked on the green wool skirt this weekend. I suppose I should have taken a before picture but I didn’t really feel you guys needed to see my skirt on the floor around my ankles.
 
I started by picking apart the top seam between the skirt and the lining. This is when I discovered that the fabric was actually a knit and that was why it was so stretchy. The waist band had been finished with nothing more than a line of stitching so there was nothing to stop it from growing as you wore the skirt. For some reason - because the designer didn’t think the waist would stretch or something - there was also a short section of elastic across the centre back. I also picked the zipper out of the side seam.
 
I sewed twill tape across the top of the skirt to halt the stretching and tried it on to figure out how much to take off each side. It was about two inches at the waist, for it to sit where I wanted, and an inch at the hip. I probably took about half an inch off each side of the rest of the skirt just to keep the lines smooth. The next steps were to reinstall the zipper - my most successful machine installed invisible zipper to date! - and then do the side seams. The fabric was really nice sew though I had to be careful not to stretch it as I fed it into the machine.
 
I did the lining after I was finished the skirt. I just sized them up against one another and trimmed the lining to match the skirt. I started out sewing the lining in so that it would be turned to the inside - no topstitching - but realized that the waistband would be too thick and wouldn’t turn easily. I picked out my stitches and redid the waistband the way it was originally with raw edges (this fabric doesn’t fray anyway) and a line of topstitching. My topstitching is a different colour than the rest and if you look really closely you can see the twill tape showing in a few spots but my shirt usually covers my waist band so I’m not really worried about it.
 
I wore my new skirt to work today. It was warm and comfy. Here is the full length picture so you can see it a little better. Photo credits go to Rob.