A Pair of Simple Skirts (and a failure)

In many ways these skirts are very straightforward and not worth blogging, but I like to use my blog to record what I make, so wanted to include them for the sake of completeness. Also, it's been ages since you've seen a finished sewn project from me. These are from vintage patterns and so count for my #vintagepledge (woo!).

The first is made from a favourite vintage Butterick pattern (6167). I added pockets and chopped a fair whack off the length to make it above the knee. I find this is more flattering when worn with flat shoes, and my shoes are usually fairly flat or small heeled.

 (Sorry about the chopped off head and feet, I was just happy to actually be getting around to taking photos)

 

Butterick 6167

The fabric is from a great charity shop fabric haul of a couple of months ago, as blogged here. It is incredibly curtain-y fabric. It reminds me very much of curtains we had in the first house that I lived in. The brown and orange colourway is very 70s to me and I would guess the fabric dates to the late 70s/early 80s. In any case, I was glad to use some stash fabric and I'm happy with the result. The fabric cost £2.49 and the pattern was part of an eBay lot (I think) so cost was minimal.

The second skirt is a MUCH needed denim number:

I wanted a denim A-line skirt with pockets and weirdly had nothing suitable in my pattern stash. I bought this vintage Vogue number 7444 on eBay and made view B (on the left):

 I took a whopping 7 inches off the length but even then, in the early stages it looked so utterly frump-tastic I was worried it was going to be a disaster. It was still too long plus the A-Line was too wide for my tastes and all that in combination with the high waisted fit made my bum look massive. It was hideous.

Luckily, once the length was sorted and I shaved some fabric from the side seams, things were much improved. I took an inch off each side, tapering the seam from the hem to the bottom of the pockets. This has thrown off the shape a wee bit but the original A-line shape was too pronounced for my liking. In fact the straighter skirt option A might have been better in hindsight, but ah well.

I used scraps for the pocket linings and bright turquoise bias tape (bought in NYC!) on the hem. Luckily the denim is forgiving as I sewed the hem twice (on the machine) but it doesn't really show on the skirt. I used an anchor button on the back;

Since making it I've been wearing it loads and will definitely make another denim skirt soon. I also tried to make a black cord skirt as simple, plain skirts are so useful. However this skirt was a bloody disaster. I used this pattern:

A fun New Look Maudella number, right? Nope. Despite all the great skirt options, the instructions for the one I chose were appalling. I went for view 5 (2nd from right) with the buttons on the hip but the instructions for all the skirts were crammed on two sides of instruction leaflet and while I could have worked out what to do for the other ones, this one had a more unusual construction. The pattern had too many bits and facings that needed to be interfaced (or not) and extra sections to be cut off (or not), with incredibly minimal guidance given. Quite frankly, my brain was struggling to work out what the hell I was supposed to be doing.

It was a relief when I realised that by cutting the front and back pattern pieces running in different directions, the nap of the fabric made the front and back look different colours. Now I had an excuse to ditch the doomed project and move on to something else. So the small pieces went into fabric recycling and the large pieces went into scrap. Black cord is also a terrible fabric choice for me, as it attracts cat hair like a magnet and shows it off beautifully. What was I thinking?

You haven't seen the last of the pattern on this blog, however. In spite of the disaster, I think I will use it to make a denim skirt, using either view 2 or 3, which are much more traditional shapes than the skirt I attempted.

Ah well, two out of three ain't bad. Have you gleefully abandoned any failed projects recently?

K x