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 :)
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| 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...
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.
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| my version |
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| original |
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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.
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| 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?
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| Too much ironing - lesson learnt. |
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| Can you see it sticking out at the bottom? |
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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.
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| 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.
