Wardrobe Staples: Corduroy Skirt

One of my favorite basics to wear is a skirt that I bought 3 years ago at H&M. It is a really simple skirt that sits on your hips and I love to wear it with a shirt tugged into it or with the shirttails hanging out. So, I thought it is a good idea to make one :)

I made a corduroy skirt, yeah!

Pattern: I used the New Look pattern 6053 as a template. It is a simple skirt, without waistband, with facings and a lapped zipper. The skirt has two darts at the back and front, but I removed the ones at the front because I didn't want them to point on my belly :P I also moved the side zipper to the back. I was thinking about adding a waistband, but in the end I just wasn't in the mood to draft this as well (I drafted a lining). I wanted a quick project...

source

Fabric: 1 m embroidered corduroy from my stash. I bought it last year in Goldhawk Road. It was in the remnant bin and they sold it for £1 only! I also used some leftover lining and cotton for facings from my stash.

my version

original

Construction: After tracing and cutting the tissue pattern, I just put the pattern pieces on top of the H&M skirt and shaped it at the waist and also shortened the length. Then I altered the facings and drafted my own lining. I just subtracted the facing pieces from the skirt back and front. As I wanted to sew the lining to the facing, I then added 3 cm (corresponding to the 1.5 cm seam allowance of facing and lining together) to the top of the lining.

Pretty inside. 

It was my first time working with corduroy and despite reading all these helpful tips, I still struggled - you might notice the sheen on the skirt! I not only struggled with ironing, but also with sewing. I had read that you should use a walking foot because otherwise your fabric layers will shift. They did, but because I used the walking foot. So after switching to the normal foot, the problem was solved. When ironing, I used another layer of cord to prevent the flattening of the ribs. This was fine until the point where I tried to iron fusible interfacing to the back to stabilize the zipper. It just didn't stick. I got angry and forgot that I should press carefully. Yep, I could see the shape of my iron on my skirt. You can still see it at the back seam, but hopefully it will wash out?

Too much ironing - lesson learnt.

Can you see it sticking out at the bottom?

The lapped zipper (my first one) went in like a breeze - after watching this tutorial by Lauren from Rosie Wednesday. So if you scarred like me about putting in zippers, I can highly recommend her tutorial! The only difficulty I had, was to attach the facing+lining to the actual zipper. I handstitched it and it took my three trials until I was finally happy with the result.

Lapped zipper and embroidery detail.

Do I like the skirt? Yes, I do. Although I am a bit annoyed about the back seam sticking out at the bottom. It looks a bit like a propeller and I really don't understand where it comes from. Any ideas? Is it because of the zipper? Otherwise, I think this skirt will be a great wardrobe staple and will be worn loads of times. And no, I haven't worn it yet, because I am still writing my PhD thesis from home and to be honest I can do this in trainers, hehe.