Grey Beignet Skirt

You know when you make things and you can't wait to put them on and you wear them every day and you reluctantly stop wearing them so that you can wash them? Well this skirt was the exact opposite of that!

I made this skirt in January/February of last year (yes, 2012), almost a year and a half ago... The pattern is the Beignet from Colette Patterns, and I made the muslin in January and then made the skirt up in February, and then when I finished it off I just wasn't sold on the skirt. I didn't wear it. I had no great desire to wear it, and it just didn't get worn...

...until Me-Made-May of this year, when I was struggling to find casual me-made winter-suitable clothes and I pulled it out. I still wasn't completely sold on the skirt then, but then I pulled it out a couple of times during June and now it's starting to grow on me.

I made one alteration to the skirt which has improved it hugely, which was to stitch up the side-seam pockets. As soon as I moved at all the pockets would gape, and it was just annoying (see above). I was aware of the gaping the whole time I was wearing the skirt and I don't like to have to think about my clothes once I'm wearing them. A quick stitch up the seam-line later, and a snip-out of the pocket bags and I had nice sleek side-seams and a happier skirt.

Apologies for the skirt being massively creased in these pics, but these pics were quickly snapped by the lovely Sarah after a whole day of Social Sewing (which also explains the stray threads that I missed).

As I mentioned in the post about the muslin of this skirt, I traced a 12 for most of the skirt, tapering into a 10 at the waist, which gave a skirt that fits pretty well. The length is as it comes in the pattern.

I tried out a machine blind-stitched hem for the first time on this skirt (and only time actually). I liked how easy it was, but it didn't turn out all that invisible on this fabric, so I think I'll be careful about where I use it in the future.

The other key thing about this skirt is the sheer number of buttons. It took me a little while to find buttons, but I eventually got these matte dark-grey ones. I stitched the buttons on by machine as well (meaning that there wasn't a stitch of hand sewing in the entire skirt!)

So while it started as a bit of a dud, having worn it a few times now I think this skirt will grow to be part of my working wardrobe.

PS: Did you see my lovely new necklace in these pics? There's a better pic of it here. Isn't it awesome! I bought it from the fabulous and inspiring CurlyPops

In for a service

Quite frustratingly, I haven't got much to show at the moment. I had big plans for this week and next. The boy is on holiday and I was planning to make good use of my spare time by spending some quality time with my sewing machine. 

Sadly, while I was quilting my hexagon quilt last week my machine started running strangely and it became hard to turn the wheel. I decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to keep going while it wasn't behaving so started looking in to taking it in for a service. I took it in on Saturday, and am hopefully going to pick it up tomorrow after work. Apparently something within the bobbin mechanism had worn out and needed replacing. I'm hoping that it will be as good as new when I get it home though.

I have got some sewing done, however, as we had a "crafternoon" on the weekend, and I had a sewing date last night, but unfortunately I'm not quite in the position to share pics of things yet. I have finished my Vogue 2902 dress but need to wait until mid next week until I have the matching belt to show you photos. 

I've made some very good progress on my Beignet, which I've been sewing along with Claire, and should hopefully finish that soon too (although I do still need buttons). So bear with me during this unscheduled break, I will hopefully have some finished things to share with you soon!

Beignet Muslin, and Super Oops!

Thusday this week was Australia Day, which means a day off work, hurrah! After a lovely picnic in the park with some friends, me and Claire went back to her house to work on our Beignet muslins. She had already traced her pattern pieces and made a muslin, but I hadn't started at all.

I decided to have a go at grading between sizes on the pattern, because my waist and hip measurements fell across two different sizes. So when tracing the pieces I traced a 12 for most of the skirt, but a 10 at the waist, and joined up between the two over the three inches above the "lengthen/shorten" line marked on the pattern.

I then cut out just the pattern shell pieces from some poplin to make a muslin, stitched up the seams and pinned where the buttons should be, and horror of horrors, it was WAAAAAY too big, as shown on the left below *insert sad face here*

After having a bit of a look at the muslin, I decided that I could pinch out the extra full-ness in the centre back, so did a quick seam up the centre back taking out a whopping 6cm(!!). Lots of cursing about stupid sizing was performed, but after that alteration the skirt fit pretty much perfectly (see above, right). My grading has left a slight bump on the front between the centre front and side front pieces, which I will smooth out, but other than that the skirt fits great.

However, before you start thinking that Sarai doesn't know what she's talking about please keep reading....

Look at what I noticed on my centre back pattern piece when I was folding it up to put it away:

Yup, that's right, I hadn't cut out the pattern piece along the "cut on fold" edge. I had just left it thinking "oh I don't need to cut there, I can just line up the line with the fold when I cut it out" but then had proceeded to completely forget that part and lined up the fold with the edge of the paper. And guess what, that extra bit of paper is pretty much exactly 3cm (ie 6cm extra fabric!)

Oops! Sorry Sarai for cursing at your pattern drafting, there is nothing wrong with it at all, it fits perfectly, it was 100% operator error!

So the morals of this story?

1) Don't be lazy when you're cutting out your pattern pieces
2) Pay attention when you're placing pattern pieces and cutting them out
3) The Beignet so far seems to have a fantastic fit, and the envelope measurements are pretty much spot on.

Pretty Colette

I went in with some friends to get some Colette patterns, which arrived while I was away over Christmas. We got the Lady Grey, Crepe, Beignet, Jasmine and Rooibos:

I got the Beignet, Jasmine and Rooibos, and have actually already got fabric for them. This is what I got:

The Beignet is a grey drill, the Jasmine a voile/lawn and the Rooibos a poplin (all from Spotlight)

I can't wait to get started on them!