Ralph, now with added cherries

Do you remember Ralph? Ralph is a skirt pattern that I drafted and shared the first version of here (wow, back in March of 2013, how time flies!). That first Ralph was a little big to start with, and then became unwearable when I lost some weight.

I examined that version and determined that the back (and placement of the side seams) was largely alright, it mostly needed width being removed from the front. So, after determining how much width to fold out of the front panels of the skirt I have remade Ralph, and this time the fit is perfect!

I want to say that the fabric for this version is a printed stretch denim (or something similar), but I don't know, as the fabric was a gift from the lovely Mindy when she was culling her fabric stash quite some time ago (Thanks Mindy!).

Now the fit is perfected, I'm looking forward to making another version of Ralph with some of the fabric I got in Vancouver last year.

Meet Ralph...

Today I have somebody very special to introduce you to; his name is Ralph.

Ralph was conceived in my pattern making classes, as an exercise in making patterns from the fitted skirt block that we made.

Ralph has a yoke/waistband, and is designed to sit below the waist. Instead of darts the front is split into three panels. In the back Ralph has two darts for optimal shaping over my bootylicious behind. And of course Ralph has pockets.

This particular version of Ralph is made from some wool left over from making my Thurlow Shorts, and is lined with some black lining fabric I had lying around. Ralph is fastened with a centre back zipper, which is lapped (because I wanted to try something new) and hand picked.

Ralph is a little bigger than he was intended to be (partly due to me not trying him on before putting in the zip) so sits slightly lower than originally planned. But since he really is quite short that's probably a good thing, as if he actually sat where he was designed to sit, things would be a bit indecent.



Thanks to the lovely Sarah for snapping these pictures for me. During the process Sarah commented that I looked a bit like a ballerina, which led to this...

 

Which of course led to this...

Anyway, that's Ralph, I hope you like him as much as I do.

PS: I took the plunge and purchased a domain name this weekend; if you visit www.mymessings.com you'll arrive right back here at my blog :)