Skirting Inspiration

Front View - Frances is quite a bit smaller than me - hence the pins!

I promised myself before Christmas that I would use some of my holiday time just to make some things for me. I'm always sewing for other people, and hardly ever make anything for myself.

At the very top of the list was a skirt. After my previous disastrous attempt, I needed to just start again from scratch. I've been watching in awe at some of the beautiful skirts that have been popping up about the place, so I finally made some time today to have a go myself.

Rear view

I borrowed Sew What Skirts from Bec a couple of weeks ago (I've since ordered a copy from Amazon... just waiting for it to arrive).

I decided to make myself an A-line tablecloth skirt from the book, using a.......eeeeerrrr tablecloth suprisingly!

To make the front pockets, I just cut two feature pieces from the tablecloth, interfaced the backs of both for some extra strength, and then added bias binding around all four sides, before sewing them into place.

The method in the book for adding a zipper was pretty simple too.  Mine certainly isn't perfect, but it's completely functional.

I decided to topstitch both the waistband and the bottom hem using red thread for an extra highlight..... not that this loud print really needs and extra highlighting.

I didn't quite measure myself properly in the beginning, so I did have to make an adjustment to the side seams for fitment, and I wish I had made it a little bit longer (again my own dodgy measuring skills). I would have also preferred it to be a little more A-line. My hip measurement is not much different than my waist measurement which caused the lack of A-lineness problem.

This ended up taking me about three hours in total, but I learned a few very interesting lessons which will make it much easier to whip up a few more with the correct measurements from the beginning!