26 October 2011

Autumn Maples Skirt


Ahhh... Autumn! How dreamy is this fabric? It's Autumn Medley Maples by Martha Negley and the pattern is BurdaStyle's Jenny skirt. There was only 90cm of the fabric left in the shop, so I made the waistband half the size it's supposed to be. As much as I like high waisted skirts, I actually prefer it this width as it's much more wearable on a little person like me.


This project ended up taking a LOT longer than I'd planned because of the lining. The lazy lady in me was planning on using up the mint green lining leftover from the Betty Draper Suit, but I thought twice and made the effort to source a lining in mustard yellow to match the occasional yellow leaf. Stitching and finishing the seams on the lining was the most time-consuming part of the process... so you can imagine my rage when, after attaching the lining to the facing, I discovered that the lining was mysteriously much smaller than the shell of the skirt, meaning that I couldn't sit down in it. Grrrrrr!

This is the kind of hitch that can lead you to chuck a project on the UFO pile. But I calmly (okay, so not so calmly) considered my options and, after a couple of days reflection, I rejected the "rip it out and wear the ruddy thing unlined" option, and instead painstakingly unpicked the lining from the waistband, made a THIRD trip to John Lewis for more lining fabric, took a squillion hours checking and rechecking the sizing, and stitched it all again. I got there eventually and am very glad I made the effort to do it properly, as the golden loveliness of the inside is a beauty to behold and feels so lovely when I slip it on. If you're going to make the effort to make something, you may as well make it gorgeous, non?


Speaking of gorgeous, I hand picked the zipper. I didn't want lines of machine stitching spoiling the beautiful print - with a hand picked zipper, you only see little dots of thread on the outside if you look closely. I followed Tasia's extremely good and detailed tutorial, although I found it easier to line the two sides up by keeping the skirt zipped up when stitching.


Quite a bit of work, but I really love this skirt!

[Soundtrack: 'Little Bird' by The White Stripes]