August | 2016 | odetosew

It’s fashion show time again here in the great city of Portland, Oregon, and that means time to bust out the best wardrobe to wear! For the occasion, I finally got around to make up this pencil skirt that I have been wanting to sew for some time now:

Cheers to my new skirt!

The fabric is the showcase for this project. It’s silk twill from the late designer Oscar de la Renta that I purchased from Mood Fabrics online. I’ve had this beautiful (and spendy) fabric in my stash for two years, and was overdue for it’s time to be made into something wonderful.

Oscar de la Renta Silk Twill

I have been saving some pins on my skirt inspiration board on Pinterest in hopes to make up a simple, yet wonderful, pencil skirt in a floral fabric:

Burda Pattern 7124 was my choice to make up this skirt as I love the slim fit and the high waist of view B:

Burda Pattern 7124

The pattern was a little bit of a challenge to read and interpret the instructions, as well as keep all the pattern pieces of the waistband and waist yoke of the fashion fabric, the lining, and the interfacing straight, marked and in order, but other than that, it was a fairly easy pattern to work with. I added two inches to the hem while cutting it out in order for the finished length to hit just below my knee.

Here is my pattern all laid out on the silk (after making up a muslin mock-up of course) and ready to cut:

Pattern layout moments before cutting

I chose this pattern also because of the nice walking slit and the full lining. I felt that this skirt in this special fabric deserved those features!

I used some black silk habotai that I had in my leftover scraps from another project to line the skirt and that worked out beautifully.

Hand sewing the interior facing and lining to the zipper

I really love the finished result of this skirt and will wear it a lot.

Interior of the skirt

love how the back yoke pieces create the high waist

Front of the skirt

I have about a yard of fabric left over from this project, and may make up a matching top at some point to make this into a two-piece dress outfit. Or, if somebody comes along and would like me to make them a custom skirt or dress from the remaining yardage, let’s talk!

Cheers!

It’s been HOT here in Portland, in the 90’s the past few days, and I’ve been only wanting to wear dresses and skirts to try to beat the heat.

On my sewing to-do list have been fun, lightweight and easy to wear skirts. As an inspiration, I’ve seen cute printed a-line or pleated skirts that are fast and easy to sew, and even easier to wear. Here are some of my inspirations:

Black floral skirt, leather top in combination with stylish necklace create universal elegant look.

I had some nice black and white Ikat printed medium weight cotton fabric in my stash,

plus black Bemberg rayon lining material which I usually have on hand or left over from another project, so I decided to make up a cute little pleated skirt for myself using New Look 6873 pattern which I have had forever in my pattern stash:

New Look 6873 pattern illustrations

Well, the pattern sizing turned out to be pretty terrible and I spent most of my time fitting, ripping out stitches, and re-sewing this skirt. It was HUGE! I followed the size chart and cut the size that matched closest to my measurements. I had to take out about 2 inches at each side seam of the skirt and the waistband in order for the skirt to even come close to fitting my waist. It was almost as if I had forgotten to sew a couple of pleats it was so big!

After fitting it and re-sewing, the skirt took about twice as long as it could have to make. Plus, I added a lining to this using the pattern pieces of view C, the A line skirt with no pleats. so that added some additional time, but totally worth it.

All said and done, I probably won’t sew this pattern again. I really should be drafting my own patterns at this point anyway. I thought it would be a time saver to use a commercial pattern where the pattern work was done for me, but that was not the case here.

Oh well, now I have a cute little skirt in a great print and I am happy!