Having decided to have a go at making a skirt, I found I had presented myself with a task that was perhaps a teensy bit more daunting than I had anticipated. There were more than a couple of skills required that I had never attempted before. Skills that I'm sure, having watching Great British Sewing Bee, are considered bread-and-butter to people who sew anything on an even vaguely regular basis. For instance, I have never fitted a zip to anything, let alone an invisible zip. I have never made an item of clothing with a lining to it. I have never inserted hidden in-seam pockets. I have never understitched a seam. I have never overlocked an edge. To be able to make this skirt, I needed to acquire four new sewing machine feet, as well as then learn to use them.
On top of all this, I have never made a fitted item of clothing before. I have, I think, scratching around in my memory, made things with elasticated waists. I have made quite a few rough-and-ready costumes for LittleBear, which have tended to have been made of very forgiving fabrics and velcro.
The significant downside of never having made anything to fit was my lack of confidence about getting the sizing right. For a start the pattern was, shall we say, confusing. There were measurements for hips and waist, whose relationship bore no resemblance to my own dimensions. I do not have an hourglass figure - it is distinctly more columnar. I like to think that I have particularly slim hips, though others may contend that it's my waistline that's too large. Whichever way you look at it though, the instruction to make the skirt size that corresponds to the circumference of my hips was going to result in something that was several inches away from doing up around my waist.
So I consulted the pattern instructions for adjusting the waist:hip ratio, feeling temporarily quite pleased that the pattern had such helpful instructions for modifying the fit. The happy sensation quickly passed. Sadly, the pattern assumed that if one were an irregular dimension, it would be that one's backside was overly generous, not one's waist. There was no consideration given to the possibility that it's not my arse, it's my stomach that's the problem. Hey ho. I decided the only way the skirt was going to fit was if I picked the size that would do up round my waist, and hoped for the best. A niggling fear that I was still getting it wrong led me to be overly-cautious in my seam allowances, just in case my tummy was even bigger than I feared or the tape measure had been conspiring against me. And thus I ended up making a beautifully finished skirt that was at least an inch too big round my waist.
At that point the temptation to give up was quite strong, but I laboriously unstitched the overstitching, unpicked the waistband, removed it, shortened it, re-gathered the waist and re-attached the waistband, overstitching and all. I also took the opportunity to give up on the hook and eye fastening at the top of the zip and put in a nice chunky button and buttonhole.
And now I have a retro Spring skirt, made to fit by my own fair hands. And it makes me happy as it swishes.
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| Ta-da! |
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| Pockets! Lovely BIG pockets! |
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| Invisible zip being mostly invisible |
And I am honestly, genuinely happy to have tackled a new challenge, and to have overcome it. The sense of achievement, not just in making something, but in learning some new skills, was something I haven't felt for a while. So I might make some more things, and I might try learning some new things too. It's really rather a lovely feeling.
