Friday, March 18, 2011

I made a skirt all by myself, and I photographed it all by myself, too

In uncharacteristic spurt of sewing practicality, I made myself up a skirt and am well into a second.  Both are from Burda 7741, which despite its disturbing cover art has become a pretty decent basic skirt pattern.  It ain't stylish, but it's very "me", and I'm sure I'll make more of them eventually.

I made two skirts from this pattern in 2009, and blogged about them here.  It's the bottom part of the strange bibbed item worn by the mildly possessed girl on the right in the pattern's illustration.  I lengthened the pattern about two inches for those first two.  For the current versions, I kept the length, and also added about two inches of width to the front and back skirt pieces, keeping the yoke the same.  Voila, nice basic dirndl-ish skirt.   Here it is, adorning my pantry door:


... and here, adorning me.  I wore it to work with a pink shirt from Target that and a cardigan from Old Navy that is all schmeebot's fault.  

Neither the stool nor the back end of
the dog were meant to be in this shot.

As alluded to in the title of this post, I finally busted out the tripod and self-timer and gave them a try.  The frantic beeping of the self-timer sets me on edge (and by the time the shutter actually fires, it's all I can do to keep from twitching), but I have batteries on order for my long-lost-but-recently-found camera remote, which I hope will help.    And eventually I'll arrive at a better camera set-up: it is clearly too low here!  

There isn't much more to say about the skirt, so have a look at its insides:


It's lined in pink batiste, and I used self-fabric bias tape to finish both the skirt and lining hems.  As finishes go, it's not exactly a couture look, but I like doing it a whole lot better than hemming, either by  hand or by machine.  Also, I didn't want the skirt to get any shorter.  I was originally contemplating a pleated flounce around the edge, but decided keep it simple.   While this skirt is fine for work (and I've already worn it there) I expect it'll see a lot of weekend wear too.

If you're paying close attention, you might have noticed that I used this same fabric for my first Pendrell blouse but I promise I'll never wear them together!

6 comments:

  1. Oh, very cute! I do like the idea of a pleated flounce. Maybe another time?

    That bibbed thing is weird. Very 1969.

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  2. Oooooh I love it! I guess it just goes to show that you should never judge a pattern by its cover (!). The fabric is lovely and your finishing is so neat. What is self-fabric bias? Does it mean you made it from the fabric yourself? x

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  3. Very pretty and basic! Sometimes something like that is the hardest thing to make :\

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  4. Andrea, I love this skirt - it's stylish both in the design and the fabric!

    I know what you mean about the self-timer making you twitchy! I tried photographing myself for the first time (as evidenced in my swing dress post) and it was so unatural. Hopefully practice will make perfect for us both ;o)

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  5. Thanks, y'all!

    Kat, re: the bias tape -- that is exactly what I meant. And you reminded me that I had some pictures to share of how I get the fabric strip going through the bias tape maker -- I just posted them. I love bias tape, and I'll find any excuse to use it! :D

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