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Hi! How are you doing? ;-D.

I am good thank you! Thought I would do a post about the fastest turnaround I have ever had with fabric. Its also a tale about my um…. second Hollyburn skirt. I really REALLY love my Hollyburn the First! So I decided that I needed a second one in a different colour – a mustard-y colour. Lucky for me I had to go into the city to get  my son’s violin fixed so in that context I was able to bypass the stash and go straight to the fabric shop 😉holyb 2

Saturday  Decision made – go after hubby and kids get back from swimming and music classes. My 4 year old comes with -( he loves all things fabric, glittery and sewing ;-). Choosing the fabric was easy my 4 year old is so incredibly decisive. “We are getting this one mummy now I need to go wee” and well that was that! In all fairness it was a good choice. I love the sack clothy look of this fabric. The fabric merchant said its a tweed look wool mix fabric – it washes and dries in the normal way I treat my clothes;easy care! The mustard-y colour is gorgeous. Plus I’ve had in mind a mustard -y winter skirt for a while now. Headed back home by 3pm. Fabric washed and tumble dried by 7pm. Kids in bed by 8pm. Pattern pieces for view B cut out before an early night at 9pm. Instead of a size 8 I cut a size 6 to achieve a more snug fit around the waist since I wasn’t planning on wearing this one with a belt. Meantime I realised that skirt will need to be lined- quickly ordered 2m  of lining off Ebay.

Sunday  Fused different weights of interfacing to see which had the best structure for the waist. The firm/heavy fusible interfacing ticked all the boxes. Found the closest matching thread in my thread stash that lives in the attic. Next I worked with interfaced scraps of fabric to determine the thread tension and stitch length. I was surprised that this fabric sewed best with a low thread tension and short stitch length. I kept trying till I got a combo that didn’t pucker or have loops. Once that was sorted I moved on to topstitching settings. My plan was to topstitch either side of the seams to create a neat super flat look.

Playing around with different stitch lengths  on seams.

Playing around with different stitch lengths on seams.

Monday  Sewed up the pockets and pocket lining then attached to the skirt pieces. For the pocket lining I used fabric from one of my husbands old M&S shirts. Its a lovely pale salmon pink and the cotton is a lush double cotton. Finished the front seam. Attached back pieces and staystitched the waist. Sewed the wasitband on.

Tuesday Luckily the lining arrived in the post today. Pieces cut out. Even remembered NOT to cut the pocket shaping on the front skirt piece. Darn that lining is slippery!! Took forever to pin it and even then it still shifted when I was sewing! Attached the lining to the waistband. Found this tutorial on My Messings.

Weird angle showing lining attached to skirt.

Weird angle showing lining attached to skirt.

Thursday Big day! Invisible zipper going in! Went in without a fuss at all. Finished off the main fabric back seam and lining back seam. Hemmed the main fabric first followed by lining hem.I was going to make view B with the tabs but when I made up the tabs  and pinned them on I realised I preferred the clean simple look of the waistband. Stitched in the ditch to hold waistband in place. Missed Great British Sewing Bee ;-(PicMonkey Collage

Friday Sat down when wee ones were napping to do a spot of handstitching the lining to around the zipper. while catching up with GBSB on Iplayer. By the end of the episode I had a skirt!!!!!holb

In less than a week I bought fabric and made an actual skirt I am wearing! Well pleased with myself.

My handstitching has come a long way since this A line skirt I made last year. I am not proud of that hem though.  In a rush to finish I didn’t handstitch the hem opting instead for machine hem. It looks chunky. Ah well.

The keen eyed among you might have noticed that the waistband is about an inch less thick. Kudos if you picked up on that. Nomatter what I did the band would come away from my tummy. It fit perfectly around my waist but above it it sort of gaped. For this reason I kept reducing the thickness of the waistband till it sat nicely on my waist. Which meant losing about an inch or so. I think it works well though and its super comfortable.Holly Must

Nothing much more to say except that I love it (again). Before I started writing my blog I used to lurk about other blogs and used to wonder why sewers made the same thing more than once ~ yep I get it. I think I may finally have what the sewing community so insatiably call “My TNT” Quick question ~ does it stand for “tried and tested” or Tried and true”?Side view

Hollyburn featured imageOne final thought I did have the same issue of a sudden immediate desperate desire to start a new project when all the big stuff was done – around the time when the zipper went in. I had to be very strict with myself (even recruited hubby to be my accountability partner)  but my gaze was already wandering onto other patterns. I even started using affirmations to try and help. Do you have the sudden overwhelming urge to begin another project when you have nearly but not quite completed a project? How do you deal with it? My willpower is waning..

If you got this far thank you for taking the time to read my wondering post. On the radar I have another skirt in the works , no its not a Hollyburn 😉

Links

Sewaholic Hollyburn Skirt Sewing Pattern