Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Half-circle skirt redux

Now, once I finished the half-circle skirt for my daughter, my wife liked it so much that she had to have one herself. In this case she wanted something a heavy, dark fabric. Once again the clearance rack at WalMart came through, producing a medium weight black denim at $1.00 per yard. On a hunch that this might prove popular, I went ahead and bought ten yards. Oof. I forgot that denim is heavy ...

Getting cocky after the success of the pink skirt for my daughter, I tried to take shortcuts on this skirt. Naturally, those shortcuts turned into time sinks that stretched the effort far beyond what it needed. First I cut the waistband too narrow, and didn't have sufficient seam allowance to make a good connection. Then I cut the second waistband 2 inches too short ...

At this point I laid my head on the table, took a deep breath, and broke for lunch.

After lunch everything was much clearer, and we got a proper length waistband put on the skirt. There were further challenges such as the elastic escaping from the pins before getting tacked in place, but we got 'er done.

It turned out well, and in fact we received two compliments the night she wore the skirt for the first time. Posted by Picasa

Getting assistance

In any endeavour, it is nice to get assistance in your work. However, the assistance I get from my sewing helper is a little less useful than most. For whatever reason, E'la (pronounced ee-la) the kitten is fascinated with the moving needle of the sewing machine. She hops right up and gives it close inspection anytime that I have an unusually long seam. Posted by Picasa

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Half-Circle Skirt

My first attempt at a circle skirt, this one for my youngest daughter. She loves skirts that twirl, and can never have enough of them. Actually, this is a half-circle skirt.

No pattern involved, after all who needs a pattern for a half-circle skirt?! :-) The fabric was a nice, soft handed pink woven cotton/poly blend that floated well; very important when twirling. It was on the $1 table at Wal*Mart, so I couldn't go wrong even if things did not work out.

Attaching the waistband was one trick I learned, after making the mistake of trying to merely roll over the waist section of the circle on the muslin test item. I mentioned the difficulty to Mom and she set me straight.

Then I learned how to use the blind hem stitch on the sewing machine while hemming the thing. Not the most obvious technique around, let me tell you, but Kate Dicey's page on using the Blind Hem Stitch was a great help!

In the end, my daughter loved the skirt, she can twirl to her heart's content, and it brightened what was otherwise a troublesome weekend as she got over her wintertime cold. Posted by Picasa