Green Wool Skirt

Mike's grandmother Joan (who donated her Singer Featherweight to us) has been supplying me with all sorts of fantastic sewing supplies including fabric.  She started a beautiful long wool skirt for herself many many years ago but never quite finished it.  Since then she has given up sewing and passed on some of her unfinished projects to me in case I wanted to re-use the fabric for something new.

I had been holding onto her wool skirt for a number of months not knowing quite what to do with it when I finally decided to try it on recently and was amazed at how well it fit around the waist!  In fact it felt like it had been created just for me.  Instead of taking the skirt apart, which would have been a definite shame, I was inspired to update the look so that it would be, well, more modern I suppose.

I shortened the hem which originally went down to about mid-calf on me (lower on Joan) so it now sits just above my knees. I also added black binding and ribbon to create roses and some detailing around the lapels to give the skirt a more chic look.  Finally I replaced the brown buttons on the lapels with black ones to match the ribbon and detailing.

Showing off the modified skirt to Joan

I've worn this skirt a few times to work now and have gotten plenty of compliments on it.  Joan was delighted to see that I had been able to make use of her abandoned project and I'm always excited to show her what I'm working on since she was the one who inspired my sewing hobby by putting that Featherweight into my hands.

Denim-Bound

This is the first piece of clothing I've made for myself with the Singer outside of class. I just finished a trial run of this skirt with a piece of inexpensive brown cloth bought from the clearance section of Fabricland. We were told to just get something cheap and solid-coloured for class so that we wouldn't be distracted with the pattern or feel bad about having to take something apart if we screwed up a step. I thought that was really good advice. The instructor was a no-nonsense woman who wanted everyone to focus on mastering the basics and not developing bad habits. Pin, baste, sew, press. Pin, baste, sew, press.

The purpose of the skirt project was to learn how to make darts, waistbands, zippers, button-holes, and invisible hems. My brown skirt turned out a hundred times better than I had expected and I was kind of disappointed that I had chosen a poo-brown piece of fabric. That's where the denim skirt comes in. I had an afternoon sewing-date with one of my girlfriends and managed to finish most of this skirt in that time. I love stretch denim.