I hoped to finish this skirt (well 2 of them) by the end of April, but my spring cleaning fever got in the way. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I accomplished this past weekend.
I feel so much better about the state of my apartment after purging at least 3 bags worth of unworn clothes as well of lots of other unused items (books, purses, etc). I organized at least 3 of the closets in my apartment, spent a whole day running errands, did some gardening, spray painting, and more. Don’t you love spring cleaning?! I know I do. I actually spent my birthday last week re-organizing my closet. It was bugging me for so long, it felt wonderful to donate all the extra stuff I haven’t worn or used.
But at the end of the weekend I did pick up my sewing once again. As a reminder I was going to get 2 of these cute little skirts done by the end of April. In truth, I probably could have, I just had too many other things diverting my attention away from my sewing machine.
Doesn’t it remind you of the newest Sewaholic pattern: the Crescent Skirt. Well, a 40’s version of it anyhow.
The skirt has the strangest waistband construction I’ve ever seen. I’ve made patterns from all sorts of pattern companies, but I haven’t run across directions quite like this before.
It’s hard to see, but basically the directions have you sew the waistband together at one side seam for both the outside waistband as well as the interfaced waistband piece. So you then have the front and back waistband attached at one side seam, and the other is left open for the closure. Then you place the two pieces right sides together (inside and outside waistband), and stitch the sides along the top and back down the one side. So afterwards you turn it right side out and you have your waistband pieces. This all becomes the skirt sandwich, which is what I’m showing you above in my picture.
In the picture above, the outter waistband piece gets topstitched to the skirt, which is shown by my pins. And then you have to turn the edge under for the innerwaistband piece and slip stitch it all together, which is the piece I’m holding with my hand.
I haven’t slipsticthed it yet, but this is the inside of my skirt so far. The opening is on the right here, and you can see it’s all tidy and neat, and I really didn’t even do any extra effort to do so, I just had to follow the instructions.
This skirt yolk construction is quite an ingenous way to do it, but the major downside is that you can’t make any adjustments to the waistband for any sizing issues.
The other downside (or upside depending on how you look at it) is that you have to use a regular zipper at the side seam. I was planning on making mine with an invisible zipper, and that option is out of the question since the waistband now doesn’t have any seam allowances showing on the inside. The upside is that the inside is really neat and tidy, which is definitely a plus with my cream-colored linen, which has a tendency to fray.
Here is the outside of the skirt back. I had a bit of extra ease in the skirt shell that I had to distrubute to attach it to the waistband.
Just a few pins right. heh
My new goal for this one skirt is for Thursday, which should be doable. I have to run out after work to grab a new non-invisible zipper and I also have to grab some extra ingredients for a slip. I underlined this skirt with some white batiste, but I still fear it’s a bit on the sheer side, particularly if I’m standing in the sunlight. So I’m hoping to make myself a slip to wear with it by Thursday as well.
In: Sewing
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