It’s Indie Pattern Month at the Monthly Stitch. As is my tradition, this is the month that I dive into the Indie Patterns that I have collected over the last year. I have always wanted to try Sewaholic’s Hollyburn skirt but was always looking for the right fabric. Me Made May showed me that I do not have a solid red skirt and I have so many tops I could wear with one, so I decided to put the two ideas together.
I trotted off to my Fabric Shop and purchased this fabric. It’s hard to tell from this photo, but it is a beautiful red Ponte knit.
Unfortunately I forgot a matching thread and zipper. Digging through my Fabric Stash I found a plastic bag in a bin that contained not only a matching thread and zipper, but MORE beautiful red knit fabric. Thus, the Evils of having a Fabric Stash. Now not only do I have 3 meters of beautiful red Ponte knit, but I have the additional 3 meters I just found in my Fabric Stash!
Patternreview is having a Fabric Stash contest so I decided to use my Fabric Stash red, probably a polyester, but who’s to know after all this time, and put my 3 meters of new red Ponte knit away in my bin – to be forgotten I am sure.
I guess if you buy the same fabric twice, it means you really, really like it?
I suppose I have a strange way of approaching PDF patterns. I started to lay out the 60 + pieces on the dining room table and as soon as I saw a whole pattern piece appear I stopped to tape and cut it out, then I moved on until the next pattern piece appeared. I just read on Sew 2 Pro that some sewist use a glue stick to put their pattern pieces together. That’s going to be my “new thing”! In the process of putting together my Hollyburn PDF I ran out of sticky tape and masking tape! Glue sticks are in abundance in this house for some reason.
Sewaholic’s A line skirt pattern is the greatest and I really like her instructions. I automatically under stitched my inner pocket piece, then I thought oops! I really should follow the instructions and lo and behold Sewaholic gave instructions to understitch the inner pocket piece!
One little design I did differently than the pattern (I couldn’t resist) was adding an inverted pleat to the centre front seam, like so…
I added exactly 2 inches to my CF seam when I cut out the skirt front. I sewed the CF seam as instructed. Then I folded each skirt front piece under at the 1 inch mark and back again at 1 inch, pinning and stay stitching it down. The wrong side…
and the right side.
This fabric was very soft, with lots of drape, but not too lightweight. I tried sewing in the zipper (a couple of times). I was able to sew it in properly into the waistband, but not in the skirt. So I did my first hand picked zipper and I was quite surprised with how easy it was! I pinned the zipper in and hand sewed it with a backstitch down one side and up the other, making sure that the right side had a tiny stitch and the wrong side had a stitch about 1/4 inch long.
I was pretty happy with my first hand picked zipper. There were only a few squiggly thread lines showing through, I think.
Stretch lace on the hand sewn hem.
Again, my challenges getting photos. I think this time I only took about three dozen shots with my camera/tripod to get these two shots. This time my son “helped” me smile.
If you are interested in reading about my top, I blogged about it here.
How did my Son help me smile? I was nicely posed at the fence waiting for my timer to go off (where’s the click, can I move yet?), then I heard the click and headed for my camera to have a look, only to have it go off again – with my Son whooping and chuckling in the background! (Apparently the first “click” was him.) Well after that I just couldn’t keep a smile off my face. Thanks for the help, Son! 🙂
So what have I learned?
- Check the Fabric Stash first!
- Try using a glue stick on my PDF’s!
- Don’t trust my ears when my Son is around!
- The Sewaholic Hollyburn is my TNT skirt.
I have some lovely black fabric in my Fabric Stash. I wonder if I can squeeze out another Hollyburn?
Have you got a TNT skirt pattern?
Happy Sewing!
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