… but I had a chance to sew too!
I was cutting out my DESIGNIN’ DECEMBER outfit, when I realized that I did not have any lining in my fabric stash at all! Oh poor me, this meant a trip to the fabric shop on Black Friday weekend!
I found this lovely lining. I wish I had written down the fabric content. If I don’t, it’s impossible for me to remember afterwards. The most I can remember is that it was mostly “Bamberg something” with a bit of polyester. That’s all I can remember. But it’s going to look and feel lovely inside my DESIGNIN’ DECEMBER skirt.
I have found the pattern I would like to use to copy my DESIGNER ORIGINAL.
Of course, I am going to have to make some alterations to my pattern – New Look 6433, view A, a simple pencil skirt. I don’t really like wearing pencil skirts so I look forward to making the zipper modification – I suppose that would be called a gusset zipper.
I cut out the skirt front and back and sewed the waist line darts EXCEPT for the one on the right front – that was replaced by a seam with a 5/8″ seam allowance.
See on the left a dart and on the right the basted seam.
I pinned my zipper on the inside of that basted seam, right side down and with the closed end at the top of my skirt. I made sure to leave a 3″ properly sewn seam at the top of my zipper, then my zipper reached all the way to the 24″ length of the skirt. Right where I wanted my hem to be. I love the pull on this zipper. It’s so obvious!
After the zipper was sewn in, I snipped open the basted seam carefully.
I now have a working (upside down) zipper in my skirt.
Now for the gusset inside. I’ve done gusset zippers before here, but I had forgotten until this writing. I cut a strip of fabric much wider than I would want my opening to be, just to be safe, ironed a centre line into it, and placed both zipper edges on that centre line. Then I carefully dragged one side out 3″ at the bottom, making sure that all the way up the zipper the gap narrowed. I suppose I could have drawn that line on the gusset itself, but I was having difficulty finding a fabric marker that would erase afterwards.
I carefully dragged the other side out the exact same distance from the centre line and pinned it too.
I flipped my skirt front over for a peek at the wrong side and found that my gusset was actually the right size to accommodate a 6″ opening at the bottom. After sewing it in, I trimmed the excess away and zig zagged the edges so they wouldn’t fray.
My zipper works! Up and down! Ohh! I have choices!
As I said, it was Black Friday weekend shopping. I could purchase all the fabric I liked at 50% off. But besides my lining, this was my only other purchase. I bought this 100% rayon. It feels lovely. I can’t wait to make a dress out of it … someday!
I really behaved myself Black Friday weekend shopping! (Although, my brother-in-law figures I have permission to go nuts now during the after Christmas/Labour Day sales week. We shall see!)
Did you add to your fabric stash this weekend? or were you cutting and sewing?
Happy Sewing!
Leave a Reply