Madly? Pleated? Trading Places?

I enjoy reading Stephanie's blog. Her rambles through Canadian history remind me of things I learned as a child or send me off down the most interesting rabbit holes of topics I need to research further. I also find projects I need to try -a good thing since I have several projects on the go, and none finished.

One of her more recent posts (or it was when I started this post a few weeks ago) featuring a pleated skirt inspired me to finish a skirt in my 're-work' pile.

Way back in 2010 I made a gathered skirt from a multi-coloured plaid. I liked the colours, but the design was less than optimal -I don't suit gathers, the waistband was too narrow, and it was too long. I decided to use that skirt to test how I look in pleats. I didn't have a pattern to go to, so I just pleated the fabric to fit my waist measurment, shortened the skirt by about 3 inches, and used the bottom cut off to widen the waistband.

I'm not sure it's a total success -I may need to stitch down the pleats -but I wore it to work anyway.

My co-workers liked in, no doubt in part to the bright colours. We have not had a cold winter, and most of our snow melted last week, but it has been very dull and gloomy. Usually we have cold sunny winters and people are feeling the effects of so little sun.

So, emboldened by my 'success' I decided to try the same on a piece of orange fine-waled corduroy I had been meaning to work on for several months.

I simply cut the fabric into two equal lengths, plus a piece for the waistband, inserted a zipper and pleated the skirt to fit the waistband.

I stitched the pleats down with two vertical seams in each pleat, the inside seam being one inch longer than the outside seam.

 I then lined up the seam lines to make the pleat, attached the waistband and stitched through all the layers.

This might have worked better if I had been using a 45 inch/115 cm wide piece of fabric like the plaid skirt, but the corduroy is 54 inches/140 cm wide. That is a lot of fabric to try to compress down.
Then, after stitching a lovely five inch deep hem, I realized I had made it too long. I would like to tell you I removed the stitches, cut off the excess three inches and re-hemmed it. But I try not to lie. No, I just turned it up and hemmed it in place as well telling myself it would make a nice, weighty hem for spring and wouldn't blow up when I was on my bike. I should just stop being so lazy, but I just wanted to finish something.

It's rather poofy and could benefit from a wider waistband; history does repeat itself.

I'll be regretting my laziness when I'm ripping out the double hem, if I decide to leave it as a skirt. I just hope it doesn't trade places with the plaid skirt in my re-work pile

Hooray for Hollyburn

I now have three Hollyburn skirts, my latest out of denim.

I look unimpressed. Why?

 I love the fullness of these skirts -they are definitely bike-able. I made the waistbands on these two skirts about an inch narrower. I am very short waisted and the wider waistband would fold over when it made contact with my lower ribcage.

 The pockets are lined with the same fabric I used to line N4's cape. So many of my skirts have pockets now. I think the only reason my previous skirts did not is my need to hurry and adding pockets would add, what, another 15 minutes to the process. I guess I have learned to slow down.

 The second Hollyburn is made from this owl upholstery fabric. It has great body as well.

 I screwed up the waistband -I should have cut it with the grain, but I was worried it would stretch. Silly me.

 I did better with the pocket facings tho'.

 Especially this one.

I have plans for at least one more of these made from a thrifted lightweight wool skirt. But that can wait for cooler weather.

Queen Bee

 After reading so many good reviews for this skirt, Vogue 1247, I jumped on the band wagon.

 I am not comfortable wearing bright yellow. I like the colour but I can only wear pale yellow in the summer when I have a 'tan' (I am a strawberry blonde -I don't tan, I just change from clear to white). If I wear such a bright yellow so close to my face, I look jaundiced, as in seen-immediately-upon-presentation-at-the-Emergency-Department jaundiced, so I thought I would make a yellow skirt which sits a fair distance from my face.
I didn't have to make any alterations to the pattern except add about five inches to the length. This would have been one short skirt otherwise. Surprisingly enough, even tho' I cut the correct size waistband, it only fit around the entire waist with easing; there was no overlap at all. I have no idea if it supposed to be that way because I haven't looked at the instructions. I'll have to see if the same happens with the corduroy skirt I have waiting (for fall) to sew up.

 I like skirt. It fits well, was easly and quick to sew, and it has a good shape. Most important is its bikability (is that a word? It is now!) but if was even a centimeter narrower, I wouldn't be able to happily ride my bike in it.

Wow, wrinkled!

 I could not, for the life of me, get a total back view, so I gave up.

And I like all the extra picture people add to their posts, so I am not sure why I haven't been adding more. So here we go , in the event someone other than me is reading this.

Here I am checking out the grapevine.

Are there any grapes in there?

Construction details:
I didn't follow the patterns directions and bind the seams because I was in a hurry.  I didn't french the seams because I was in a hurry. They aren't serged because I have brown thread in the serger and a project requiring brown thread is next in the queue (and while I could have changed the thread back to brown again, my serger has an evil, nasty streak and senses when I am in a, you guessed it, hurry, and would have refused to work at all) and, well, I was in a hurry. So I pinked them using pinking shears I  picked up at a garage sale.

 The just-fits waistband, because there is no overlap, is fastened with two little daisy buttons I had in my stash and loops of narrow elastic I coloured with a fabric marker.

I used hem tape to make the narrowest non-rolled hem I have ever done and the length is just right. The tape was in a bag of notions I also picked up at a garage sale. The colour is such a close match it was only the seam gauge on my sewing machine that allowed me to stitch it in place. Thankfully it was the usual 5/8" mark that I followed and things turned out fine.

The pockets are lined with some polka-dotted fabric from the scrap bag and just adds to the over all summer happy vibe.

Would I make this again? Most definitely! This cotton version is great for summer and the corduroy one will be lovely for fall and spring. I'll try wool for the winter!

Jungle January, I mean, July

A dollar short and a day late, isn't that how the saying goes?

I was in no way able to participate in Jungle January, tho' I enjoyed seeing what everyone else made. But now I have a giraffe skirt!

  It is my TNT skirt pattern but as I only had one yard (not meter) of fabric I had to make the waistband lining and pockets out of a different fabric, but I kept to the theme.

This is one of the many things I cut out earlier in June. I'd best get busy and work on the rest.

Several Skirts

There hasn't been much sewing in the last couple of days; we've been doing some extensive yard work but I did sew three skirts earlier in the month when it looked as if spring would never arrive.

First up is the Hollyburn skirt in brown corduroy (and a view of my hallway in desparate need of spring cleaning. Ah well, if spring isn't coming, why should I clean?!?)

I made the middle length skirt, but next time I will make the shortest version since I ended up shortening this one quite a bit. I will also make the waistband a little narrower. That short-waisted business again. Erf.

This skirt is from Schnittvision (if you visit the link, you'll have to scroll down until you find the green skirt. I could not 'capture' the skirt on its own). I quite liked the idea of using the striped corduroy in the yoke running perpendicular to the main part of the skirt.

As Schnittvision patterns are downloadable to your measurements, they fit quite well. Happily I can wing it without the instructions because I do not read German that well. And while the Geek is German, she has never sewn so she doesn't understand what it is the instructions are trying to say.

The third skirt is in a rust-coloured corduroy (I was tired of wearing my wool skirts, not because they were wool but because they signified winter! to my winter-weary mind) like the others are.

I found the pattern in a thrift store and while it looks familiar, there is no brand name that I could see on the envelope.

Taking inspriation from other creative individuals on the net, I lined the waistbanc with a coordinating print. Having those numbers handy may help me with my math at some point.

I have another (corduroy) skirt cut out, and another couple planned, but thankfully the weather has warmed up, so I can move on to some other fabrics that say 'spring', (or even better, 'summer')!