The erratic weather here in Chicago has kept me from venturing out to take pictures earlier. First it was way too hot out to wear my skirt comfortably(90+ degrees) then it got all rainy and cold (50 degrees) not a day later. Pure craziness.
But I happily managed to go out during my lunch break yesterday to take some pictures of my Simplicity 4532 1/2 circle skirt to be able to share with you all.
It was raining in the morning, so I had the perfect prop to match my rainy day skirt. How ironic that the day I choose to wear my skirt, it ended up raining?! :)
Felix and I wandered over to the Art Institute and I realized I haven’t taken any photos in front of the iconic bronze lions. You can see one of the lions in the background but I’m actually standing right in front of the other one.
Here’s a closer look of the applique:
I sewed on all of the raindrops on the machine with a satin stitch, but I did all the umbrella pieces by hand with the seams turned under. I had to baste all of these pieces on by hand first before taking them to the machine. So if you’re going to try some applique yourself, trust me, you’ll save yourself a lot of extra work with your seam ripper if you take the time to baste.
I sewed an inch wide horsehair braid onto the hem of the skirt, starting with Gertie’s tutorial. But instead of finishing the hem by top stitching the braid to the skirt or to the underlining, I invisibly feather-stitched it to the skirt shell, since I didn’t underline it.
Afterward, I flipped the hem of the lining to the wrong side and stitched it to the skirt shell’s hem by hand so that all of the seam allowances and hems would be nicely hidden inside the skirt.
Neither a seam allowance nor a stitch can be seen anywhere on the inside of the skirt, after I attached my lining at the hem like this. (mini yay)
While you can see the outline of the horsehair braid on the outside of the skirt, you can’t actually see any stitches on the outside of the skirt itself. It would probably have been more inconspicuous a hem if I had underlining, but I didn’t want the skirt to get too thick since I plan to wear it in the summer through early fall.
I really do love this skirt, but I really felt like I was getting looks all day long. From what I could gather, they were positive looks but I’m still not sure how I feel about being noticed in public. Truthfully, it made me feel a bit exposed. Like most people, I do like it when people compliment me on my home-sewn clothes, but at the same time I don’t go out of my way to dress to get attention; it’s just not me.
So I’m not exactly sure where I fall on this. This topic reminds me of a post that Gina of Vintage Girl did about dressing vintage and referencing the looks she was getting at the store for dressing differently. And while I know you can only dress to make yourself happy without worrying about what other people think, I still seem to be struggling to find that balance myself. It does make me happy to wear fun, feminine, cute clothes but I’m not sure if I’m ready to be the center of attention as I’m walking down in the subway.
If you have any thoughts on this topic, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear what you all think. :)
In: Sewing
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