Well! Boy, I have been remiss! Has it been THAT long since I posted?! Eek.
It has been a whirlwind few months and I’ve missed posting my makes here! If you’re with me on Instagram though, hopefully you’ll have seen some of what I’ve been up to. I have been practising the art of self-drafting. It’s kind of addictive
One of my favourite recent makes is this pastel pink pencil skirt – not at all a colour I would usually wear – especially as a skirt – but something about the fabric caught my eye and made me try it. And, of course, I love it. Love it!
It’s fully lined, with the lining attached to the skirt vent but otherwise hanging free at the base. In the picture below I still had a little bit of hand stitching to do at the bottom of the vent, but you get the gist!
My favourite part was, after much research, and some practice attempts on miniature pieces, drafting the vent and lining and finding that everything came together perfectly first time! The trick is to have separate lining pieces for the left and right of the skirt, so that one piece is lined all the way down the vent edge, and the other piece sort of has a cutaway for the vent, as in the picture below. And be as accurate as possible with your stitching lines! I drew mine on before assembling the skirt:
You’ll end up with the vent looking something like this from the inside:
Another nice feature is the zip shield – no more catching my blouses in the zip teeth when zipping up the skirt! This is another feature that’s surprisingly easy to draft and sew, once you’ve done it once.
Lastly, I threw caution to the wind and put some side slant pockets on this baby. I know, I know – pockets?! On a fitted pencil skirt?! But it’ll ruin the lines of the skirt! Well, whaddya know? Turned out to be just fine. And they’re nice, comfy pockets – win!
The fabric is a really lovely stretch cotton from Sew Over It. It’s got an embossed pattern you can hopefully see in these pictures, and a really nice weight. With an acetate lining, this skirt feels really luxurious, and has been a big hit at work!
– Michelle –