It was a cutting weekend…

… 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!