I do believe that my sewing has reached the “big leagues” today. By that, I mean wearing a me-made garment to work. Proper work wear. What an achievement! My self-imposed standards mean a knitted hat or scarf does not count. Actually, I did wear this dress to my first day of the new job and I've worn this one too, but they are not office-only garments. This one is strictly office only.
The wool-blend fabric was the inspiration behind the skirt. I spotted it on Clothspot about a year ago and ordered a metre. It was always going to be a pencil skirt. It was a great price and has turned out to be a great fabric to sew. The colour is one of my go-to colours. Rather too much actually, at one stage in my life, I realized I could put together an entire outfit in this colour, including my underwear, shoes, coat and lipstick. Enough is enough and I’ve tried to cut back since then.
No cutting back on the wool pinstripe, although I did refrain from making a matching jacket. The fabric is soft and stable and the stitches disappear into it perfectly. It frays a bit, but nothing too dramatic. The pinstripes make following grainlines and matching seams easy peasy. I loved drawing on it with chalk, I pretended I was a real tailor! I am thinking about what else I might make (it comes in turquoise!) No! No, step away from the fabric.
I have a few fit issues with the skirt, some of the seams are not sitting right. But my biggest issue with this pattern was the sizing. I’ve read that the big pattern companies sizes run large, but c’mon! This is a pencil skirt, it is supposed to be fitted! I could have cut two sizes smaller than my measurements and still had room for a big lunch. I was so careful to grade the pattern, cut and fit the lining first and it was still miles too large. If I have to unpick because I’ve made a mistake, fair enough. If I am unpicking because the fit is way off, that’s just annoying. I could have finished this in half the time if the sizing was better. I had to take in 5 seams at the waist and the side seam all the way down.
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| Zip? What zip? |
The result is that the skirt is actually unbalanced. I did such a magnificent job of installing the invisible zip - first go, check it out! - that there was no way I was going to unpick it to take that seam in. Ditto the back vents: they were so fabulous that I wasn’t touching them either.
In the end, I decided to enjoy the process and get on with resizing it, rather than bemoaning the extra work and resist re-doing. I did love working with this wool (blend). I still think I should take in both side seams below the hip. But I never get around to remaking or mending stuff that I consider finished. Why do that when there are always new projects in the queue?
I modified the pattern to eliminate the above-waist finish of the skirt. I have a very short waist and all my skirts already look above-waist. Another 5cms and I could have tucked it into my bra. Instead, I attached the skirt to the lining at the waistline and folded the extra centimetres in, as a facing.
My lining was also from Clothspot. I love a loud lining on a conservative garment. I’ve got some work to do to learn how to attach the lining to the vent openings. In the end, I made it up and hand stitched the linking down through the vents. It doesn't sit flat and there is some slight puckering around those vents. For some reason, they are not well fitted. I hope I get away with it as a pressing issue, rather than a home-made skirt.
I'm proud of my understitching and hand stitching the lining down against the inside of the zip.
I wore it to work the day after it was finished. I didn’t even wait to take pictures first. (I was extra careful not to spill my lunch on myself that day!)
Costs: Fabric: Clothspot £7.98
Lining: Clothspot £5.78
Zip: Mood £0.30
Pattern: Burda £4.63
Total: £18.69
Pattern: Burda £4.63
Total: £18.69
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