Perfecting the Skirt and Rainbows

Kia ora! In December last year, after purchasing and watching the new Susan Khalje class on Craftsy "The Couture Lace Skirt", I pulled my unfinished skirt block from the depths of the muslin pile and decided I needed finish it.

To be honest, I don't wear a lot of skirts which is why I've never bothered to finish it, but I really really really want a guipure lace skirt. I didn't want to start with having to find a skirt pattern then go through the fuss of fitting it for my body. The toile felt more than a little snug around the hips so I added 1/2" to the side seams of the pattern, giving a 1" ease, then got out some remnant fabric and proceeded to sew up a skirt. Hmmmm, it didn't fit!  It was way too big and almost fell off my hips. Yeah, I know, I should have done a fitting once I got the side seams together, but it was December and the end of a long year!  Anyway, I made some tweaks to the pattern, dived into the stash again for more fabric and made another - okay it was a boring black skirt! But hey, I made sure the lining was fun. And who doesn't need a black skirt, right.

I made a couple more tweaks to the pattern before deciding it was time to test out Susan's techniques before fully committing to the guipure lace. Hello rainbow skirt 😎

The rainbow eyelet I purchased from The Fabric Store in January 2017 with a thought to making a bomber jacket ... I never did make it. I then found this very cute cotton lawn with a small floral print - I've got no idea where it came from or when I purchased it, so I'm guessing because it didn't have one of my fabric stash tags it's been in the stash for quite ... some ... time!

First I cut out the cotton, put all the necessary markings on the cotton with one of those Frixon erasable pens, coz I love them, then placed the cotton pieces on the eyelet fabric and thread traced them together and treated them as one. I sewed in the darts and tacked the two pieces together by hand with rows of horizontal running stitches about 2 inches apart.

I finished everything except for the waist. I found some white striped acetate in the stash and constructed the lining. All three layers are secured together at the waist and finished with a piece of grosgrain ribbon, as recommended by Susan. The zipper is inserted by hand using a pick stitch (which is my favourite way to put in a zipper if I haven't already told you that before).

I am in love with the small floral underneath the eyelet 💖

You can't even really tell where the darts are. Well you have to look super close 👀

I wore the skirt to work for the first time this week. I totally enjoyed the fit of the skirt, the shape and the length. I think I'm ready now to make many more variations using my bock, but first I need to tackle the guipure lace skirt using all the applique techniques Susan teaches.

Until next time, happy sewing 😘