Oh, the Silk Skirt

Last year I saw this raw silk tweed online.  I loved the bright pink and white.  It looked so happy and summery!  Plus it was on sale for $4 a yard, so what was I supposed to do? I bought 5 yards thinking I could make a jacket and skirt.  

See how there are two different colors in the picture?  Well, there's quite a story behind that.  For once (luckily) I decided to test my fabric before I actually made anything out of it.  The silk started out looking like the fabric on the left.  I didn't want to pay to have it dry cleaned so I tried hand washing it.  The bright pink dye filled the sink and turned the white yarns pink.  So maybe hand washing was out.  Then I tried pressing the fabric.  A little bit of steam would help get the wrinkles out, but the slightest bit of moisture sent the dye running.  After testing with a few tiny drips of water it became clear that to keep this fabric in its original color I would be unable to wash it, steam it, wear it in the rain, or cry in it. I had one last idea.  I emailed the nice people at Dharma Trading Company and asked about a dye fixative.  They gave me a recommendation but they couldn't guarantee it would work.  I tried it on a small sample and it seemed to help, so I jumped in and spent half an hour up to my elbows in very hot water and chemicals.  The end result?  What you see on the right side of the picture, which is basically the result I got with hand washing.  At that point I decided I had nothing to lose so I threw the whole piece of fabric in the washer, washed it on delicate and dried it in the dryer.  It didn't fall apart so now I don't have to worry about dry cleaning or hand washing anything I make out of it.  The fabric came out of the dryer really soft, so that's an added bonus.

I had a really good picture in my mind of how I wanted this skirt to look, and this picture actually looks like the picture in my head.  Unfortunately it doesn't look nearly as good on me as it does on the dress form.  I have another skirt in a similar shape and it's not that great on me either.  I thought it was because that fabric was stiffer, but now I'm pretty sure the whole flared, gored skirt just doesn't work for me.  This was another self-drafted pattern, but this time I actually drew the pattern on paper, not directly on my fabric.  Now if I ever want to make myself another unattractive skirt I have the pattern all ready!  Just kidding, sort of.  I think adding more flare to the pattern will make it better for me. I'll have to think about that for awhile, and in the meantime I'll stick to straight skirts.

I kept the sewing super-easy on this one.  Straight waistband, no lining, and topstitched hem.  I made a half-hearted effort to match the horizontal stripe (check? tweed? whatever!) at the seams and it turned out pretty good.  The only problem I had in my visually-challenged state was the hem.  I pinned it up in a couple places and thought I could eyeball the rest, but apparently I need two eyeballs for that, not just one. It actually looks perfectly fine on the outside and I don't think many people will be asking to see the inside of my hem.  I learned a lesson and I'll be more careful next time.  

If I weren't so behind on my blogging and sewing I probably would have taken the time to iron the skirt before I took pictures.  It's been wedged in my closet with all the other skirts I've made and haven't worn.  Stay tuned though, I've got some other finished projects that.... aren't skirts!  

Sewing Blind

If you read my last post you know I've been suffering from some vision difficulties.  I had to think long and hard about what activities I was willing to give up and what activities could be adapted to my partial blindness.  Well, I sew.  It's part of who I am.  It's my creative outlet and has helped me cope with other stresses in my life, most notably the birth of my twins 20 years ago.  I suppose I could have sat back and waited for my eye to heal (I'm still waiting!) but instead I decided to face the challenge of sewing blind (ok, half-blind) head on and see what happened.

I had been waiting anxiously for May to join the Summer 6PAC sew-along at Stitcher's Guild.  The idea is to sew a 6-piece collection of items that can be mixed and matched, and will coordinate with my existing wardrobe.  This makes SO much more sense than my previous plan of sewing a skirt every month for a year.  At the end of 2011 I had about 10 skirts that didn't match anything and they're still taking up room in my closet.  At the end of April I was in Utah picking my daughter up from college and we went to Yellow Bird Fabrics in Salt Lake City where I found some navy woven cotton-lycra fabric with white polka dots that I just had to have.  I guess that was the inspiration for my collection.

May came, we shipped our daughter off to London, and I was home alone, half-blind, and in desperate need of some activity to keep me busy and productive.  I decided to tackle the polka dot fabric.  It really wasn't heavy enough for a fitted skirt but I didn't let that stop me.  I knew what I wanted and I was determined to have it.  I've created a fairly decent pencil skirt pattern over the past couple of years.  The only problem is, it has a yoke and princess seams and I didn't want anything breaking up the polka dots.  Now it would have required very little effort to trace the pattern pieces onto a new piece of paper and change the princess seams and yoke into darts, but I wanted to start sewing right away.  My backup plan (and not my most brilliant idea) was to lay out the pattern pieces on the fabric, overlapping the seam allowances, and trace around them.  Not the most accurate way to get my pattern, but I suppose it worked.  This is about the time I realized that using scissors with one eye (and therefore no depth perception) is more difficult than one might imagine.  Maybe it didn't matter that my pattern wasn't that accurate, because my cutting definitely wasn't either!  The sewing itself didn't go all that badly for my first one-eyed effort.  The invisible zipper in the back has a little bump at the bottom but everything else worked out just fine.  That's a good thing, too, because unpicking stitches is another difficult task with one eye.  I suppose I should also admit that I thoroughly messed up the lining, not because of my vision but because I was in a hurry.  I've never gotten around to drafting a lining pattern for this skirt so I just copied the skirt pieces and figured I'd deal with the back vent when I got to it.  I won't go into any more detail, but I'll never show anyone the inside of the skirt!

Despite the imperfections I actually love this skirt!  It's comfortable, fits reasonably well, and I've worn it several times already.  I will definitely be drafting a proper pattern for this skirt so I can make it again.