I made a skirt, darn it!

Making a skirt, or any type of clothing for that matter, is something I have wanted to do for a very long time. Seriously, I've thought about it for years. Since my days of playing with Fashion Plates and sketching the outfits in Seventeen Magazine I've thought about how much fun it could be to design and/or make my own clothes. Now that I have a few sewing projects under my belt and am becoming more confident, I decided it was time! SO, armed with some 5.00 a yard fabric and Simplicity 4137, I began.OK. I DO have new found sewing confidence, but this is still me, ya'll. I knew I wanted to try this pattern. I liked the "swingy-ness" of the skirt, and it says EASY on the pattern package. So it MUST be easy, right? Despite the word Easy printed on the package, I fretted for at least an hour before starting. "What if I can't do it?" "What if I make a complete mess of it?" Then I remembered that I'd only paid 5 bucks a yard for the fabric and that the pieces I'd be cutting out were big. Big enough to cut out and make into bags, checkbook covers, placemats or something if it came to that.

So I began. Laid out my fabric, got out my pattern. ACK!!! This fabric has a one way nap and it wasn't WIDE enough to fit the whole skirt! Yikes! I didn't want to make the shorter version. Short skirt+my fat legs=hideous. So I had to try and lengthen the short version as much as I could by measuring several inches down and trying to redraw the cutting line.

I did that and had a skirt front. Yay! But then...BOO! It didn't "look" big enough to fit me. Luckily, I had extra fabric, so I tried again and got more what I thought would work. Of course once I put the two pieces together, it was WAY too big. I had to take it up.

Next came the yoke. It was supposed to be cut on the bias. I THOUGHT I had extra fabric, remember? Not exactly. I didn't have enough to cut on the bias due to the fact that I had cut that first skirt front out and decided not to use it. I ended up cutting up that skirt front to make the yoke. NOT on the bias. I think this effected the fit and the way that they top of the skirt hangs. It's OK, but not entirely flattering.

It called for a drawstring with two buttonholes in the waist. I still don't have the new sewing machine out of the box(it has an auto buttonhole thingy), so I opted for an elastic waist. That part was fairly easy.

And then, I was done! Took me four hours. Was it easy as the pattern package promised? Well, no...but it wasn't THAT hard either. And I think I made it harder with my fabric choice. Still, despite being annoyed at myself at every flub, this was fun! I see more skirt making in my future. And I do love love love this corduroy apple print. Even if I am too old to be wearing it.
Yeah, to other people it will probably scream "Homemade!" and if a person looks closely they can find all the problems and no doubt crooked seams, but I don't care. I will wear it in public! I can always pair it with a long blouse or jacket to cover up the not entirely flattering waist yoke. I made a skirt, darn it! And I'm proud of myself!