Friday, February 19, 2010

One for me, one for her

I finished that long brown skirt (Burda 8280). Here it is
 
You might be thinking "Gosh, doesn't it look rather enormous!" Well, you'd be right. It's made from a crepe-y viscose fabric that shrank alarming  during it's pre-cut out, pre-shrinking phase - so much so that I had to go and buy extra yardage (or rather, meter-age). But as I stitched it together, it slowly stretched out again...The day I wore this ankle-length skirt, it initially sat at my mid-hip. By the end of the day it was touching the tops of my feet and barely respectable. I'm not sure whether to just take it in at the sides or - gasp - gather it all the way around.

I also made this for The Little Madam, out of an old rib singlet of mine. The decorative elastic at the waist is actually pieced together from the internal bust support of the singlet.

 
I didn't use a pattern (I'm too cheap). I just traced around an existing stretch skirt, directly onto the singlet and took it from there. The trim is from a grab-bag of offcuts that I bought for 6 bucks, little knowing that most of it would be unused a whole year later.

So that's one skirt for me, and one for TLM.  And you know what? I reckon she won.

3 comments:

Antoinette said...

Wish I could comment on the skirt for you with any suggestions but without handling the fabric it's hard to feel confident I can add to the brainstorm. :) I love that cute skirt for your little one -- and it's the perfect project to go patternless with.

Violet said...

I once owned a skirt of similar texture (soft, heavy, and unexpectedly shrink-y), which would shrink lengthwise when it got wet. If I got caught out in the rain, it went from ankle length to hideous mid-calf length. I thought I was being clever by not ironing the fabric out after it's preshrink, but maybe I should have. Hmm...

LK said...

I'm a real amateur at sewing but I know I prefer a fitted waist to a gathered one. As a woman who has had babies, the less fabric around my tummy the better for the silhouette I think.