Monday, April 27, 2009

BWOF 4/09 #101 Skirt

Pattern Description: The A-line shape, small patch pockets on the front, a front hip yoke and faced waist lend this skirt Sixties appeal."

If they say so. I don't particularly see anything Sixties about the skirt - it's a simple A-line, with 6 panels and a front yoke with buttons.

Pattern Sizing: BWOF sizes 36-44. I made my usual 38 with no alterations.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Yes, except I didn't make mine in painful yellow.

Were the instructions easy to follow? More or less. I didn't really use them - they had an odd method of dealing with the front yoke and I decided to go my own way.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? It had the potential to be a nice basic. One of my favorite go-to skirt patterns is an A-line from a 2006 issue of BWOF, such a basic shape that it really lets the fabric shine, and I wanted to try this one out to see if it was as good. Maybe not for me, though the panel treatment could be interesting to play with in a patterned fabric.

Fabric Used: Olive/brown denim that has been aging nicely in my stash for 4-5 years. I wanted to use it for jeans, but the cut was shorter than I realized and there wasn't enough, so it became a skirt. I like it as a skirt, though - it has great potential to work with much of my spring/summer wardrobe.

Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made: I made this one up exactly as BWOF intended, even the cute little patch pockets. Which I wasn't sure I would like initially, thinking that the horizontal line would add width to my hips, but it seems okay. And I had four of these carved wooden buttons, so I wanted to be able to use them all.

With typical BWOF logic, they have you make the layered front yoke with functional buttonholes, even though the yoke is in some fashion limbo between functional and decorative - the buttons unbutton, but the skirt has an invisible side zip. I did it their way, and then I did it way, stitching over the existing topstitching so that the yoke wouldn't gap.

This is an unlined skirt, which bothered me. When I started thinking about making it, I figured I would end up lining it, but by choosing the denim I got away with not doing it. I made the inside yoke and facings from some leftover plaid from my recent pants, and rather than assembling the yoke/facing their way, which involved some tortured sewing-but-leaving-the-inside-yoke-unsewn and lots of "be careful not to stitch the such-and-such" I stitched the such-and-such and simply hand-sewed the edges of the facings to the inside yoke to cover what I wasn't supposed to stitch. It gives the exact same result and I would rather do a few inches of hand-sewing than spend 15 minutes trying to keep from sewing something that to me logically should be stitched down.

I topstitched around the yoke and along the center front and back panels, and I topstitched the hem. Ah, the joy of denim - having permission to machine stitch the hem was one of the highlights of the project before I even got it constructed.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I will probably end up sewing this again, minus the pockets. I have a few fabrics that might be cute with the panel treatment. It only took me 2 evenings from cutting the fabric to hemming the skirt, so it's not a hard project.

Conclusion: A great basic, slightly more challenging because of the yoke, with some nice details.

10 comments:

sewing said...

Cute Skirt!

Ann Made Studio said...

Very nice! This was also one of my picks from this issue.

Lisette M said...

How funny! I have been thinking about this pattern today and how I'm going to make it from fabric and buttons I have in my stash. Yours turned out very nice

Rachel said...

I really love that skirt!!!

gwensews said...

http://kbenco.blogspot.com/ just recently made this skirt. I think she had some issues with it. I thought you may like to compare thoughts about the skirt.

Your skirt looks very nice, and fits beautifully.

Judy said...

Nice looking skirt! It looks like it'll be a wonderful spring basic bottom. I've been wanting to let you know how much you've inspired me with your reconstructing projects--now to make the time (or make it a priority?) to do some of those myself.

Lori said...

Very cute skirt.

Anonymous said...

Very cute skirt. It is on my to do list!!

Tany said...

The skirt turned out really beautiful!

Kat said...

Great skirt, Karen!