Thursday 4 April 2013

Sewing Bee Challenge: A Line skirt

Anyone watching The Great British Sewing Bee programme at the moment?

It's fabulous!!!  Anything that can get sewing back into the mainstream is a brilliant idea as far as I'm concerned.

The first challenge the 8 contestants had this week was to make an A Line skirt.  One person lined theirs.  Another added homemade bias binding to decorate it.  The skirts themselves were just three pieces of fabric, with darts and a concealed zip at the back.

Funnily enough, before the programme was aired, I was also making an A Line skirt with some corduroy discovered in a charity shop.

My skirt pattern also had darts.  But it had just two main pieces of fabric, a waistband, side zip and a button closure.

Here is the end result



It fits beautifully and hangs like a dream.  I love corduroy to soften curves.  It's also so very tactile.




This is one of the darts I inserted.  It really does help to shape the skirt.  You start to sew from the widest to the smallest part leaving a tail of thread which you then knot to prevent the dart from falling out.  Always remember to press darts after creating them.

The waistband was a new technique for me.  The previous waistbands I have made have had raw edges inside.  But this was handstitched on the inside.  It makes it much more elegant (not that anyone knows that it's there, but *I* do!) and durable.











The side zip was relatively well concealed.  Given the choice, I would probably make a back zip next time.  If you don't get it right, side zips can pucker easily.  And besides, it's always easier to sew something on the flat rather than round a curve!

I have an admission to make - I've not figured out how to make a buttonhole on my machine until now, either LOL!  So this was a first (and so easy with a buttonhole foot - I really must do a post on sewing feet soon!)


As I was looking through my Janome instruction manual trying to find out how to make a buttonhole, I also figured out how best to use the blind hem stitch too.  So this was what I used to complete the skirt hem.

What do you think?

Next...



No comments:

Post a Comment