Scrappy Circle Skirt

Last week, my sewing machine decided to stop working. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, so lost the entire day and a busy week meant a panic as I wasn't able to try and solve the issue. One dose of determination, a decent screwdriver and a tangle of thread and lint from under the baseplate later, and my machine is working! Just two and a half weeks left to finish up my costumes though. So here's the start of a long term project I've been working on as I've not gotten much done this week:

I have long coveted the idea of a scappy skirt, something made with all those little project ends that are too small to become anything useful on their own, but too pretty to throw away. Well, if I want one it's about time I made a start on one.

I picked up some polycotton in purple for the skirt base and drafted out a quick full circle skirt on the folded fabric. Suzie checked the drafting for me, so I felt certain I could proceed with confidence.

By far the best tool in the making of this skirt was the availabilty of a good decent allotment of floor space. I pulled pieces of fabric from my designated scrap box, and tried to arrange them in a way that was visually pleasing without being too rigid about the layout or piece shape.










So far I've discovered that my inner magpie does a lot of my fabric purchasing for me; the final skirt at the moment is aiming towards a very shiny finish. There's also not enough scraps to do all four panels, so each panel is going to end up with it's own distinct character. So I pinned.

And then I pinned some more. And a bit more. And by then my back and knees were making distinctly unhappy noises, so that was all the fabric sorting I was going to get done that evening. The plan is to sew everthing down with a running stitch to stop it shifting about, then to bind each edge with a close zig-zag stitch.

Long term project yes. Panel one already has a lovely weight to it. And it's incentive to get more nice sewing done to replenish my scrap box!

Victorian Walking Skirt

*mumble* weeks to go now. Far too few to be counting, lest I panic completely at this stage. So I decided to get one more item knocked off the list; a simple Victorian walking skirt.

Once again using Truly Victorian pattern TV208, I didn't actually have enough fabric to make a properly full skirt, so I cut the front, side front and side back panels in full, then made do with the last of the fabric on the fold for the back panel. Thankfully, that's turned out to be just full enough!

 

I think it may be a little too short on the back hem (wouldn't do to have the underskirt peeking out), so I plan to attach a pleated trim to the hem as soon as I can find a complimentary fabric for the purpose. Though with so much still to sew, the skirt might just do as it is for the costuming weekend away, with trims added later. 

Jeans Skirt II

I'm trying to get my floordrobe sorted at the moment, and discovered that I have *ahem* quite the little horde of partially worn out cord jeans, waiting for the "I'll fix them later" moment to arrive. Sure, I could modify them like I did last time, but the ideal of making a variety of skirts is much more appealing.

For this skirt, I selected three pairs of cords in shade of brown, and started by cutting open the inner seam completely.  I'd already measured by waist (and my hips to make sure nothing ended up too tight) I flattened out the cut trousers, and marked out one sixth of this size on the waistband of the cords, and cut this mark down to the furthest point of the leg cuff, so I'd get a good, broad piece of fabric.

I'd planned to use all six pieces, but must have been too generous in my cutting as all six pieces together were too generous for my own curves. Where pockets would sit on the back of the skirt, I sewed up the edges, and on all panel, I removed the back pocket panel.

If I'd been more organised, or stopped to do this whole skirt more carefully, though that wasn't the intention at all here, I would have planned the skirt closure more carefully. As it was, I cobbled one of the jeans zips into the panel of the same colour. It's not perfect, but it works.

And voila, the finished skirt! I've already dubbed it the Chocolate Skirt in my own mind. With three jeans worth of fabric, it is delightfully heavy, and is whispering quietly to me of talk of petticoats.

Back to sewing

After completing the last big project, I was desperate to cut my teeth on something quick and dirty to get back into the swing on things machine sewn. So when I came across a lovely green and peacock feather patterned fabric while out shopping with Gytha, I knew just what to do with it.

As I imagine with many people, when my jeans fail, they rip on the inner thigh, not the worlds most repairable juncture. So when my latest pair of black jeans split, I decided to do something with them instead of just consigning them to the bin.

I was lucky with the build of these jeans that I was able to slice off the legs just above the crutch seam, giving me a straight seam to work with on the hip pieces. The fabric that I bought was 150cm wide and 2 metres long, so I sewed the cut edges together with a french seam to give myself a good wide skirt.

I wanted to avoid bulk at the join of the fabrics, so I decided to pleat the fabric. Sometimes, joining the width of the skirt to the much (but not all that much) narrower width of the hip band can be an exercise in drowning in fabric. You can get around this by pinning the fabric down at the points of the compass first. That is, I lined up the seam of the skirt to the back seam of the jeans. Then, I found the half way point of the fabric and pinned that to the front seam. I repeated again for the side seams and it leaves the fabric more evenly divided and much easier to pin in the pleats.

When the skirt piece was sewn on, I folded the seam back up against the denim and sewed it down again to give it a little more strength; hems, they were made for me to step on.

And I have a finished skirt, in a little under an hour. And even better, it has pockets! Skirtage that still allows me to carry my keys and wallet without the need for a ruddy handbag. Suzie approves too, and that's very important.