First one for me, but obviously not for the internet. Skip if you’re already yawning! 😉 This one is the first of my self-drafted “straight” skirt planned for the Year of the Skirts.

Style Shots & Mug Shots

Wang Wannabe ?

Wang Wannabe ?

Wang Wannabe ?

The Inspiration & Design

I normally don’t go for lace. They’re usually too dainty, or too mother of the bride conservative, or too boudoir for me.

But I loved the styling for Burdastyle 2013-03-109 Lace Skirt.

It’s so Spring like and “airy”. I know, it’s coming up to Fall. But I’m usually a season or a few years behind.

I was originally going to use this Burda pattern. But since I’m sorting out basic skirt blocks for myself, I thought I might as well test the one closest to this Burda skirt. Then I won’t have to test and alter two lots of patterns.

The Pattern

Block Used: Straight Skirt Block

This is the one derived from a combination of Kenneth King moulage and straight skirt instruction that I blogged about here.

Straight Skirt Block

Design Changes Made

Design Changes Made

1. Moved the darts slightly to work with the lace’s regular repeat pattern. The darts are still within my acceptable range.
2. Moved the side seam slightly and widen at the hem slightly, again to work with the lace’s pattern.
3. For the lace layer, joined up one side seam at the hem just above the scallop to minimize piecing required.
4. Went for the above-knee length. I originally planned a longer length. But after trying out on Q, I decided the shorter length looks more modern when paired with my new I’m-A-Dress-Form top. As I had already cut the lace with scalloped hem, I had to shorten from the waist.

In retrospect maybe I should have widen the hemline a bit more. Mine is not as wide as the Burda pattern at the hem. I was worried that with a straight hem rather than a curved hem (to make use of the straight scallop edge), a wider hem would dip at the side seams. But the result of my narrower hem is that my skirt doesn’t look as airy as the Burda photo.

Fabric & Notions Used

• Cotton Lace from NY Elegant Fabrics, NYC. I’m not sure what type of lace this is. It’s a bit like guipure lace, but has a simpler repeat pattern and seems more light weight than a lot of guipure lace.
• Silk Georgette from Borovick Fabrics, London.
• Silk Charmeuse (?) from Cloth House, London. I’m not sure if this is charmeuse. It feels like one. But no one in London seems to know what charmeuse is much less sell it! Scratch that. No one in the UK seems to! What’s with that?
• 23cm Lightweight invisible zipper from McCulloch & Wallis, London.
• Waist facing: petersham from McCulloch & Wallis, London; skirt eye & hook
• Sewing Helpers: Spray starch; Fray Check

Construction Notes

Well the making this skirt was hell of a needless palava. I was hell-bent on making the skirt “airy (fairy)”. But I think my pattern and fabric combination slayed my effort. The result was a bit mother of bride-y to be honest and I could have arrive at this result with a lot less hassle.

• Palava #1: To Underline or to Line. Almost all of the guipure lace skirt articles I found suggested underlining and even quilting the lace to the underlining with rows of loose hand tacking. That did not appeal to me. The examples all look too structured rather than “airy”. So after much agonizing I decided to treat the underlayers like linings, except the “wrong sides” – ie the side with visible darts and seam allowances – are inside / next to the body. The layers are joined at the waist but allowed to roam freely and independently at the hem. The two underlayers are also joined at the invisible side zipper.
  In retrospect I needn’t have bothered. The skirt pattern wasn’t wide enough for the underlayers to roam freely. The cotton lace didn’t help by shrinking on contact with water it seems, making the fit even more snug. So my attempt at separate closure for the lace layer with a row of eyes and hook also failed miserably with gap-ahoy. In the end I had to hand tack the lace to the zipper edge and seal off raw cut on the lace with Fray Check.
• Palava #1.1: Lace Seaming.
  
  

  Butted side seam

  

  Butted dart seam

  

  Dart cutting out

  Because of my decision to treat the lace layer separately I suffered massive amount of hand sewing. I thought I’d try applique seaming that’s sometimes suggested for guipure lace. But the tiny overlapped edges looked bumpy. I was also afraid the machines will choke on the uneven bumps. So I ended up trimming away most of the seam allowances and then try to butt connect the cut edges by hand mimicking the lace design with tread bars and rather random overcasting stitches. As you can imagine it took ages for 4 darts and 2 side seams.

• Palava #2: Underlayer fabric choices. The reason I chose Georgette on top of Charmeuse was to soften the transition from see-through lace to opaque lining, again for a more “airy (fairy)” effect. But it didn’t really work: the transition still looked quite abrupt when I hem the two underlayers different lengths. So both ended up about the same length at the top of the scallop edging. I’ve since been studying photos of some Dolce & Gabbana lace skirts & dresses I liked to see what I did wrong. But on closer inspection a lot of them do seem to show the legs, which even when paired with granny shorts seems sadly a bit impractical for real life. I love the look, but I don’t love the hassle & snarky remarks I might get wearing that sort of outfits :.( Maybe I should have gone for flesh colored China Silk instead of Charmeuse. That might have been a better compromise to preserve modesty without an abrupt transition from lace to opaque.
• NOT A Palava: Taming the slippery underlayer beasts. For the Georgette & Charmeuse, I resorted to tons & tons of spray starch. Yeah, naughty me. But despite what the experts advice about silk (dry clean only), I plan to hand wash these. I have little space in my closet for Divas, and tailored garments have already reserved that title. So no fiddly tissue papers for me. The spray starch made these Diva fabrics much easier to handle. They still wanted to shift and slip, but at least not at a mere sneeze. It also helped to control fraying a little bit. And made it a bit easier to mark these fabrics with chalk. (I used Clover Chaco Liner. It’s the easiest of what I have that doesn’t leave a permanent mark. But I’m still on the hunt for even better marking tool / method. If you have a trick for marking slippery lightweight fabrics please do share!)
• And the Rest:
  • The underlayer were french seamed by machine, and narrow hemmed by hand.
  • For closure I resort to my favorite – an lightweight invisible zipper.
    Mercury Handmade Fashion’s recent blog tutorial on  invisible zipper in a french seam came in really handy. I had two separate layers of french seams to deal with. So it was slow going with a fair bit of hand basting. And for waist facing I resorted to petersham + skirt eye & hook like with my other recent skirts.
    
    

    Invisible zipper & french seams

    

    Waist finishing
  • And I finally took the plunge and tried out my hem marker. The white chalk powder worked surprisingly well on these ivory Georgette & Charmeuse. But to be on the safe side I thread-traced as soon as marked…using red threads. Yeah, me bad. But my aging eyes thanked me for it. But wait, what’s this, the Georgette layer still ends up with a crooked hem peaking out from under the lace shell! WTF!?!? I swear it was level when I marked. I’m hoping it’s my naughty ironing of the Georgette layer (yeah, me bad again) that maybe stretched that bit out. Hopefully a wash will relax the fabric and return it to the proper even length again. Worst case I’ll re-hem that bit.

The Verdict

The skirt is definitely wearable. But it sure was way too much effort for what it is. It’s nothing special design-wise — more of a team player than a superstar. Nor is it spectacularly flattering. I definitely could have simplify the process rather than let the lace bullied me into so much hand-sewing.

After I made this I checked out the fancy dress department at a local department store to gauge what seaming might work in the future. I think for a fitted look, the underlining approach is the way to go – ie handle the lace and an underlayer as one so the SA are all hidden by the underlayer. For a looser fitting look, I’d go with some sort of overlocked seam so that the SA sticks out from the seam and isn’t so visible from the outside (compared with being pressed to one side of the seam).

This is the second of my self-drafted pencil skirt planned for this Year of the Skirts. The silhouettes & patterns are basically the same. But I’m experimenting with different finishing details, fabric combinations, & maybe lengths to avoid making the same skirt over & over again. I want to see what sort of detail changes will give each pencil skirt a personality of her own.  So maybe I’ll do a comparison round up post after I’ve made all three. For now Pencil Skirt No. 2 wants her 15 seconds of fame!

Style Shots & Mug Shots

The Inspiration & Design

The inspiration started with this lovely flocked denim from Mood LA I bought 2 years ago. I was debating how best to showcase the large motif. Originally I was going to make the whole skirt out of it (like Oonaballoona did with her dress). But my Inner Scottishness took over. I decided to spread the love over multiple me-mades. So for this skirt, it takes center front stage. For a matching jacket I’m dreaming about it’ll take center back stage. And the bits & pieces left over will show up god knows when or where.

Now the coordinating fabric…well, it’s not as coordinated as I would like. The lovely flocked denim is the darndest shade of odd gray with a warm greenish tinge. Her sparring partner in the meanwhile is a bog standard gray denim with a cold bluish tinge, also from Mood LA. Any stylist would tell you to keep your warm & cold undertones apart. In fact, never mix them in the same outfit if you can’t resist wearing colors of different undertone to your own skin.

I searched high & low for a better match. But London yielded no result (Fashion Capital of the World my ***). So I made the executive decision that Sod the Stylists It Looks Fine Because I’m So Punk! I did make a concession and kept two fabric apart with a velvet rope piping boundary line.

Silhouette-wise I decided to continue the flocked denim’s High-Low theme (formal damask pattern in indulgent velvety flock vs rough & tumble denim). Since the Substance is more rough & low, the Form went formal & high. A shapely princess pencil skirt it is then.

I kept the back details subtle & complimentary to the Diva in the front. But to stop the yawns I…

• traded bog standard CB slit / vent for two princess vents;
• topped these off with matching velvet buttons – my inspiration was sort of historical military jackets;
• and tasked the CB invisible zipper with maintaining the formal symmetry.

The Pattern

Block Used: 1-Dart Pencil Skirt

This is the one derived from a combination of Kenneth King moulage and pencil skirt instruction that I blogged about here.

1-Dart Pencil Skirt Block

Design Changes Made

Design Changes Made

1. Lowered waistline slightly (3/4″) to avoid optically widen the narrowest part of my waist with the horizontal waistline. Also remove tinsy bit of ease from the new lowered waistline so the skirt doesn’t hang even lower than expected.
2. Convert darts to princess seam. Back princess seam is tapered below hip. Front princess seam below hip is style line only (ie seam added without tapering).
3. Repositioned front princess line to work with the size of the motif on the flocked denim.
4. Kept CB seam for shaping above the hip for a closer fit, and for the CB invisible zipper.
5. Added extra seam allowance to back princess seam below mid-thigh for princess seam vents.

Fabric & Notions Used

• Damask style Floral Velvet Flocked Stretch Denim from Moods Fabric LA. (Oonaballoona made a fabulous dress from a similar fabric – also from Moods – a while back. Sadly Moods Online doesn’t seem to feature these fabrics. Try the Mood NYC store as well if you want some.)
• Stretch Denim from Moods Fabric LA
• Velvet piping (“Velvet Insertion Braid“) from MacCulloch & Wallis London
• 1/2″ velvet buttons from Harlequin UK (I found them on eBay, then discovered on their website that they also do custom fabric covered belt – including fabric covered belt buckle – at a reasonable price! Perfect for when I finally tackle a retro style me-made! Let’s hope there’s enough other customers to keep them going until then!)
• Cotton / rayon millinery petersham from MacCulloch & Wallis London for the waist facing
• Lightweight tricot interfacing
• Recycled invisible zipper
• skirt hook & eye

Construction Notes

One things that slows down my self-drafted me-mades is figuring out the construction & finishing details. The design details & fabrics I’ve chosen all call for anything other than the bog standard seam & seam finishing. Maybe with more design experience the selection of seams & finishing would be second nature & more speedy. For now you’ll have to put up with my glacial speed.

• Lesson learnt: Overlock the edges before you sew the seams, especially if the seam allowances of such bulky fabric will be pressed open.
  In keeping with the formal silhouette, I wanted seam & hem finishing that’s more formal. So no jean-style bulky flat-fell. I was going to press open the seam allowances & overlock each SA separately. But I found it very difficult to overlock once the seam has been sewn because the uneven bulk the feed dog / presser foot has to handle: 1-layer SA on one side of the seam vs 3 bulky layers on the other (1 SA + 2 shell layers). So the fabric wouldn’t feed properly. Maybe if the SA was wider so the bulk is to one side of the presser foot…But then the SA might be unwieldy where the seam is curved. I end up having to overlock both SA layers together, then top-stitch in place. Thankfully top-stitching was virtually invisible, so didn’t detract from the formal theme.
• No lining this time. I was tempted. My default is to line everything. But as the fabric has a bit of stretch, I would have to get stretch lining. Then I start wondering why I assume lining is necessary all the time. Many of my favorite RTW skirts don’t have lining and I still wear them loads. So I jumped. It seems in keeping with denim anyway.
• Waist finishing: I’m experimenting with petersham ribbon as my go-to light-weight skirt waistline finishing. I could have used facing as well, but it would have to be a lighter weight fabric to avoid ridges. But, erm, petersham is easier? 🙂 The bottom of the ribbon is only tacked at the seams & CF to make it easier to press without the ribbon’s bottom edge striking through. The ribbon also act as a waist stay of sort with the addition of hook & eye. I find it easier / less taxing on the invisible zipper if the waist is already hooked together at the waist opening.
• Hemming: The hem edge is simply overlocked, not turned under as that would be too bulky for a more discrete hem. I decided against top-stitching here to continue the formal theme. But this time instead of standard catch stitch I tried blind catch stitch. Since the skirt isn’t lined, I thought avoiding stretches of exposed threads (eg from standard catch stitch) would be a good idea – more durable with less exposure to friction. I should try machine blind stitch one day. Maybe even on the overlocker! I don’t feel brave enough yet though.

The Verdict

I’m pretty pleased with the result. It makes me look like I actually have a bum! Probably thanks to the combination of stiff fabric & back princess shaping.

Having worn this a few times now I think if I were using the same patterns for non-stretch woven fabrics then I might reduce the back princess below hip tapering to give me a bit more hem ease. These denims have a little bit of stretch, so the shapelier tapering is fine this time, but might be a bit risky with my unladylike wide stride.