Buy a skirt. Noooo – make one instead!
Sunday, January 10th, 2016
I saw this lovely, eye catching skirt on a London boutique’s website and fell in love instantly. I liked the simple look of the skirt, the way the plain yellow colour really popped and most of all the unusual shape. I had to have it! Problem is, so did everyone else and my size was just never in stock.
What followed was a few months of disappointed website watching then it came to me – there was only one thing for it, I was just going to have to make my very own version. I love pattern drafting my own clothes although I must admit sometimes I have no idea where to start! But that’s the beauty of this skill. It’s all about having a vision, playing with shapes and doing a spot of engineering to pull the perfect garment out of the bag. It’s so liberating to design something from scratch, just exactly as you want it to be. And because you’re not constrained by a commercial pattern, you can change your mind half way through the design and end up with something you really weren’t expecting to get. Which is very exciting.
This skirt started with my normal skirt block, which I traced around on to spot and cross paper. The paper was then slashed and flared out to ensure the skirt would be wide enough to allow for the folds. It made for a very unusual pattern. Yes this picture is the right way up!
I choose a plain purple medium weight cotton for the job and used the same fabric in a light green to line it. Now some would say these are two quite unusual colours to put together. But I was pleased with the result and if I get bored of the purple, it wouldn’t take much to reverse it so the green is on the outside.
This really was not a hard skirt to make – took about four hours including making the pattern, which of course I can now use again. It made me glad that I didn’t pay the boutique for one when it’s such a simple skirt.
Mine doesn’t look exactly the same I know, but I’m very pleased with the result and like the added touch of the buttons at the ends of the wraparound pieces. I promise, it does hang gorgeously when it’s on – the mannequin doesn’t do it justice.
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