Denim skirt
In all of my many years I don’t think that I have ever owned a denim skirt, never mind made one myself. Well I do now, and not being one for ‘the ordinary’, mine has to be made out of patterned stretch denim. Having at last found Barry’s in Birmingham, I went in and asked if they had any grey denim. I got a curt response of ‘no’. So I ended up in Fancy Silk Store, a shop where I rarely exit without having bought something, found a roll end of this fabric and was offered a discount without even asking. Thank you Fancy Silk Store!
I’ve used this Butterick pattern a few times, here and here, but never made the short version of the skirt. It’s easy to make. Its just taken me about 2 1/2 hours, but a lot of that was spent cutting it out. The skirt has a centre front and back seam, so I needed to make sure that there was something close to a pattern line up going on. Therefore, I cut it out of a single layer, remembering to turn over the pattern pieces for each section. There were only a couple of cm spare in the width, but I knew that before I started, and was careful. I have top stitched all of the seams. The pattern has two pockets, which I thought would be bulky in denim. But I thought that one pocket would be useful, so I cut it out of the remains of the peacock fabric. (Oh, and didn’t top stitch that part, in case you are noticing!)
The hem was a little tricky to line up, because which ever way you look at the fabric, it can appear to be uneven. Additionally, the elastic waist has the potential to sit somewhere slightly different every time that you wear it, so what was straight on the dress form hemming thing, may not be straight next time it is worn. I am satisfied that it is as level as it is ever going to be.
And in the interim, I made some light weight denim shorts – long ones, as I can’t be doing with showing lots of leg these days, and longer length shorts cold be worn in the city as well as on the beach. I’ve made these before, and they are fairly easy. In order to differentiate mine from the run of the mill denim shorts, they have butterflies on the back and front near to the hem.
Front view
Back view
One Week, One Pattern
Me Made May 2016
Me Made May 2015
Simplicity Competition
Sew Over it Patterns
all my own work by ann 