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Hello everyone!

Hope you are all well! I have a post that I have been meaning to get done for some time. Way back in November I bought some Craftsy classes during their Black Friday sales. One of them was Pattern Making Basics – The Skirt Sloper by Suzy Furrer.

Its an online class delivered via the Craftsy Platform which means you can ask the teacher questions and they respond as soon as they can. In my case it was 2 days at most before I got a response from Suzy. You can also see questions and responses asked by other people taking the class. I found it helpful because sometimes my issue was answered in previous questions.

The class is very comprehensive. Suzy shows you how to take measurements accurately – I thought I knew how to do this but now I know. The sloper took me a couple of hours to draft  – both front and back. I then had to make a muslin and adjust the fit. My first muslin looked like this:

Suzy has you draft a moulage which a close fitting skirt with no ease at all. Its supposed to fit like a second skin so those puddles on the back are a no no.

Most of my adjustments involved shaving off 1/8″ here and there. I also had to move my front darts 1″ towards the side seams to get rid of the drag lines  across the back. I had kept on pinching out fabric at the side seams but it had the drag lines regardless of how tight it got. A simple shifting of the darts and everything dissolved into a smooth fit. Amazing!

Once the adjustments were made on the muslin I transfered them to the sloper. I started off making my sloper using a thick white paper from old wallpaper. When making the sloper you will need to preserve it since you trace from it when staring a new design. I am glad I did this because I didn’t have to retrace it onto sturdier paper.

From there I drafted my first A line skirt. The class includes excersizes on drafting an A line skirt, bias flare skirt and circle skirt among others. There are excersizes on drafting pleats, peplums, flounces, empire line skirt, pencil line skirt, knit skirt. She also covers the different types of waistbands – straight, lowered, contoured, faced and contoured waist bands. Oh and there is also an easy pocket instruction.

There are so many different types of skirts to make. I am having fun with it. Here is my A line skirt with a faced waistband and lining. I made it in pale blue/aqua linen. Its lined to reduce wrinkling. Suzy also advocates lining your skirts because they always hang better. And I have to say I am a convert! I just love this skirt and slipping it on and off is such a pleasure:-)

Wearing it inside out to show the lining. Very pleased with the look of a lined skirt.

Used an invisible zip.

The front dart is closer to the side seam and that creates a smooth tummy fit.

Though it is lined – linen still wrinkles!!!

My verdict

I highly recommend this class if you want to be able to make great fitting skirts. But its not just that. I have found that I understand the architecture of a skirt a lot more and can apply that to other sewing patterns. 

I mean I have  developed a really good understanding of where the darts need to be in order to achieve a smooth fit. I also have the sloper which I can just place under or over the sewing pattern to see how much the pattern needs to be adjusted by in order to fit the way I like. I would say this class has upped my game when it comes to making skirts ; £12.50 well spent.

The only fly in the ointment for me is the paranoia that one day these classes may not be available. Crafsty promises lifetime access but reading the small print it does say ‘Craftsy’s lifetime’ so I don’t know what that means if they get bought by someone else. I worry sometimes about this because I really like this class and find it so useful! Ah well..

I am also doing the bodice class which I will review when I am done with making the sloper.

Are there any Craftsy or other online classes you thought were money well spent? Did you feel they upped your sewing game? Please share in comments below. I love discovering new classes (makes a change from buying sewing patterns and fabric! 😉

Thanks for stopping by and happy sewing!

Hila

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