The Birds aka Another self drafted skirt….

| Hila

Hi everyone!

Its nearly the end of August eek! Must get on with finishing my summer projects – my head cannot stay buried in the sand forever. I will have to say “Good bye summer I hardly got to know you this year“.

Anyhow, allow me to present another self drafted skirt. This one is a taffeta lined, high waist A line skirt with pockets. It’s nearly the same as this one I made in Feb however it has a waistband instead of a facing. Drafting it took about 45 mins because I faffed around with whether I was going to keep the front waist darts or not. This was important because of the pockets. The positioning of the pockets is in the dart area. In the end I just kept the darts because I wanted a fitted look. I lengthened the skirt by about 6 inches to hit my knees. The pockets were split into 2 pattern pieces – one of the pocket bag lining and one for the visible part of the skirt. I did this to reduce bulk as my fabric was a cotton canvas. A Cath Kidston cotton canvas…

Say WAHHHHHHH!!!! Yes I bought 1m of Cath Kidston ‘Birds’ fabric. For months I had been looking for something to make for the Monthly Stitch Put a bird on it Challenge (I had voted Foxes and have plenty of foxy fabric in the stash but no birds). Took a while of searching but I finally found this birds fabric as something I could get down with. Unsurprisingly I first saw it on InstaGram (Thanks IG…for a free app you are turning out to be quite expensive!)

The fabric came in this lovely spotty packaging (which I still have). It was so exciting! – the thrill of receiving a fabric package. Waiting till I had enough time to savour opening it (little people having naps ;-).  My next issue was the lining. I went shopping specifically for lining and found this red taffeta and I knew it was prefect.

2015-05-23 10.30.08
Happy mail day!
2015-05-23 10.33.37
Thought of making a sarong..lol
2015-05-23 18.28.39
Playing around with outfit ideas
2015-06-04 15.48.27
seriously just love this fabric.

All things assembled cutting was next. Took longer than normal because I had to get the optimal pattern placement. I did not want decapitated bird heads. So everything was cut single layers. Because cotton canvas frays it had to be overlocked straight away. I also overlocked all the lining pieces as well since I was at it.

Sewing it was quick work. I use an 80 sewing needle which made a nice difference to the stitch quality. For the waistband there were a few options for me and I tried the fold a band which was a first for me. It creates a crisp sharp waistband without a lot of work. I also did a button waistband for the first time and used a hook and bar.

2015-06-04 15.57.33
Reminds me of Cinderella the Disney original animated movie
2015-07-21 22.15.29
I think it called waistband tape..picked it up at car booty. Its make quick work of the waist band.
2015-07-21 22.15.37
Crisp fold.

2015-08-27 07.57.30-1

To maximise length I went for  a bias hem and it looks so neat on the insides. Its a very nice skirt – I feel very To the Manor Born in this. Love it very much, all that’s missing is a wide brim sunhat and Daiquiri with me swanning around saying “Dahlin…”.August blog photoshoot1 498Cath Kidston birds fabric skirt
 August blog photoshoot1 499 August blog photoshoot1 502 August blog photoshoot1 512 August blog photoshoot1 515 August blog photoshoot1 537 August blog photoshoot1 545 August blog photoshoot1 553 August blog photoshoot1 555 August blog photoshoot1 556 August blog photoshoot1 557

Overall I am very pleased with this skirt …Despite the invisible zip not being quite invisible (DONE is better than PERFECT)– I enjoyed taking my time over the new techniques and getting a neat finish. Plus, the fabric is lovely, it has pockets and I think that the shape of this lends itself well to a few more skirts in different fabrics/colours that could become easy wardrobe staples.

In all honesty, I’m immensely proud of how far my sewing and dressmaking skills have come. To think just over a year ago I was tentatively dipping my toes into sewing, now I am designing, drafting and creating my own clothes!

Anyhow, you know the drill guys, til next time…
Hila

xox

Advertisements

52 thoughts on “The Birds aka Another self drafted skirt….”

    1. Thank Carmen! I bought Suzy Furrer’s Patternmaking Basics: the Skirt Sloper during Black Friday sales last year. I actually watched the class in Jan this year and started drafting. I have since bought the other classes she offers. I highly reccommend this class. Its excellent.

      Like

      Reply

      1. When I saw your skirt, I found the fabric amazing. No wonder when I see the brand… Well done ! Your skirt is really nice, with a perfect finish. You could enter the sewing bee competition with your skills !

        Like

  6. Another great fitting garment in a beautiful fabric! It’s great that you’re still extending your sewing skills by trying new things. I cannot believe you’ve been sewing just over a year!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  13. Ha! I have the overnight bag in the same fabric!
    Love it. And really like the flash of red of your invisible zip. My zips have been a little too invisible recently, in that I’ve tried to make them so invisible the zip gets caught up in the fabric. So I’m all in favor of not quite invisible.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I am a sucker for interior canvas fabric. Good point on the zipper. I did that with my barkcloth Hollyburn skirt and have since had to replace zipper. Its time I learnt lapped zips.

      Like

      Reply

  16. Well done indeed! You really put a bird on it and very well! Thanks you for sharing a bit of your process! I am new at sewing and this helps a lot! Anyway…zipper lining fabric…and shirt…are good match!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you! I bought a Craftsy class called Pattermaking Basics – The Skirt Sloper by Suzy Furrer. Its an excellent class and thoroughly worth every single penny and more. Cant reccommend it enough.

      Like

      Reply

      2. Its really good and worth it. Wait for the sales though to buy it Craftsy has a lot of great 50% off sales. I have never bought a class at full price😃

        Liked by 1 person

  18. Lovely, beautiful fabric! I too went looking for a bird-print when that challenge was published, and in the end designed a fabric myself over at Spoonflower. Naturally I was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too late to post anything at The monthly stitch by then, so I never made anything out of it. Seeing this I kind of regret that 🙂 I also like how you combined the pockets and the front darts, and the whole skirt fits you perfectly!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thank you!I missed the challenge too but thats ok. I have heard of Spoonflower and it sounds interesting. I need to draft a variation with a box pleat at the center front.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  19. This fabric is AMAZING!! Love the style and you have totally nailed the fit! It was well worth the effort to cut the fabric one layer at a time, it works perfectly. Great work! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  24. You have done well Hila, and all the more amazing as you have so much going on in your life. This skirt looks so cute. I also liked the sarong with the red cardigan and striped T shirt. A great look.

    Like

    Reply

Join the conversation!

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s