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cimoreneIt's remained -14 today, though it was supposed to start warming up soon, so it will likely be cold tomorrow when I have to go back to work. It's been awful the past week, and strongly reinforced my desire (mentioned in a previous post) to make some wool fabrics from my late MIL's stash into long skirts, which I think will be warmer and more comfortable to wear to work when it's below freezing. On the other hand, it made me much slower to get started because I kept running back to the duvet, so I didn't get started with it until Friday.
Most of making this first wool skirt (the first time I've sewn with wool fabric and the first time I've made a full gathered skirt, though I have sewn plenty of other stuff, albeit mostly a long time ago) went pretty well.
The main thing is just that I ended up sewing a lot more by hand than I anticipated or intended: chronologically,
1. Hand-felling the two side seams because, while I intended to use overlocking to finish the edges of the wool fabric, I did the math wrong and didn't have enough seam allowance left to overlock the edges after I'd sewn up the side seams with the pockets in place. The fabric was unraveling on the cut edges more than I would like, so I hand-felled the two side seams. I got a lot better at it in the course of doing those seams, so even though neither one of them looks that great, I think I could do better next time I do it... although I intend to avoid it if at all possible! However, the seams look okay now that they've been ironed from the outside, and they're also rather concealed in the folds of the fabric, because the skirt circumference is twice the waistband circumference, creating a lot of gathers at the top.
2. Sewing the skirt into the waistband because after gathering the waist, the fabric was too thick to fit through the machine any more! That's two seams, one attaching the inside of the waistband to the skirt and then another attaching the outside of the waistband on top of it. Top-stitching would've been nice on the waistband, but it wasn't possible thanks to the aforementioned thickness. Sturdy interfacing in the waistband would've been a good idea too, but I was too lazy beforehand and after it would've been too hard to add it. Fortunately it functions and looks all right without it, because otherwise I'd've had to rip out those two hand seams and redo them.
3. Hand-felling the bottom hem, which, to be fair, I did intend to do from the beginning. I don't resent that, but it did take a long time and I stabbed myself several times during that seam. Also it's thanks to that seam that you see the big creases in the skirt in the modeled photo because Anubis sat in and on it in my lap for several hours while I was doing it.
And finally, 4. Finishing all the raw pocket edges. This was just trying a method that actually is legit, but I messed it up the first time. I tried a version of![[youtube.com profile]](https://youtube.com/favicon.ico)
MariahPattie's 'Victorian inspired pocket techique': separately overlocking the edges of each side of the pocket, then sewing the pocket halves onto the skirt side seams, then sewing up the side seams of the skirt leaving the pocket opening as a gap, then sewing around the edge of the pocket inside the overlock stitches. I just did this wrong, and if I'd had more of the same good sturdy white cotton (a vintage hand-embroidered* bedsheet inherited by waxjism from some embroidering ancestor) I was using I might've just ripped them out and done them over. My cutting out of the pockets wasn't careful enough and my attempts to run the zigzag stitch a short distance in from the edge of the fabric (a bad idea that I got because I was worried the fabric would still unravel if they were right on the edges and they'd fall off somehow... which might happen with SOME fabrics, but it wouldn't have here, I now realize- I got the hang of it later) made it worse, so there were slight differences in the pocket shapes that made the zigzag seam lines not match up. So while the pockets WERE finished and structurally sound and not going to unravel, they still had a bunch of extra seam allowance around their outside edges. Even though that didn't show from the outside of the skirt, I hated it, so I trimmed it all away and bound the edges of the pockets with bias tape instead. It would've been possible to do by machine, and that would've looked much neater, but I didn't want to try to wrangle all the skirt fabric out of the way, so I did it by hand. And I had to hand-fell the sides of the pocket lining where they met the side seams of the skirt too, and I had to do it separately in white thread so it wouldn't show from a glance at the inside of the pockets. But providing you actually DID overlock the fabric edges and cut them out exactly alike, this method would've worked fine, and you could simply overlock all the way around the pocket pieces so you wouldn't have to hand-fell anything. I figured out overlocking after the side seams and used it successfully for the button placket and the center back seam.
*this embroidery is not on the pockets, but I'm going to use it to make a skirt/petticoat next so the embroidery won't be wasted.
I could do this whole project so much better if I could start over from the beginning, even though I'm quite pleased with the result as is.
And this project was almost zero waste! There ended up being only about three or four square inches of the fabric leftover. However, I definitely look forward to doing everything more efficiently, neatly, and sewing-machine-aidedly in future. Although if I try to make any more wool skirts there will probably still be some hand finishing. I'm not sure if I'm really going to make up the second piece of fabric, though, because I don't love it and there's SO much of it - I think enough for a whole suit for somebody? - that it seems a shame to take a chunk out of it for an uninspired skirt. I'm not sure how best to pass it on to a good home, though, so I guess we'll see.
Most of making this first wool skirt (the first time I've sewn with wool fabric and the first time I've made a full gathered skirt, though I have sewn plenty of other stuff, albeit mostly a long time ago) went pretty well.
The main thing is just that I ended up sewing a lot more by hand than I anticipated or intended: chronologically,
1. Hand-felling the two side seams because, while I intended to use overlocking to finish the edges of the wool fabric, I did the math wrong and didn't have enough seam allowance left to overlock the edges after I'd sewn up the side seams with the pockets in place. The fabric was unraveling on the cut edges more than I would like, so I hand-felled the two side seams. I got a lot better at it in the course of doing those seams, so even though neither one of them looks that great, I think I could do better next time I do it... although I intend to avoid it if at all possible! However, the seams look okay now that they've been ironed from the outside, and they're also rather concealed in the folds of the fabric, because the skirt circumference is twice the waistband circumference, creating a lot of gathers at the top.
2. Sewing the skirt into the waistband because after gathering the waist, the fabric was too thick to fit through the machine any more! That's two seams, one attaching the inside of the waistband to the skirt and then another attaching the outside of the waistband on top of it. Top-stitching would've been nice on the waistband, but it wasn't possible thanks to the aforementioned thickness. Sturdy interfacing in the waistband would've been a good idea too, but I was too lazy beforehand and after it would've been too hard to add it. Fortunately it functions and looks all right without it, because otherwise I'd've had to rip out those two hand seams and redo them.
3. Hand-felling the bottom hem, which, to be fair, I did intend to do from the beginning. I don't resent that, but it did take a long time and I stabbed myself several times during that seam. Also it's thanks to that seam that you see the big creases in the skirt in the modeled photo because Anubis sat in and on it in my lap for several hours while I was doing it.
And finally, 4. Finishing all the raw pocket edges. This was just trying a method that actually is legit, but I messed it up the first time. I tried a version of
waxjism from some embroidering ancestor) I was using I might've just ripped them out and done them over. My cutting out of the pockets wasn't careful enough and my attempts to run the zigzag stitch a short distance in from the edge of the fabric (a bad idea that I got because I was worried the fabric would still unravel if they were right on the edges and they'd fall off somehow... which might happen with SOME fabrics, but it wouldn't have here, I now realize- I got the hang of it later) made it worse, so there were slight differences in the pocket shapes that made the zigzag seam lines not match up. So while the pockets WERE finished and structurally sound and not going to unravel, they still had a bunch of extra seam allowance around their outside edges. Even though that didn't show from the outside of the skirt, I hated it, so I trimmed it all away and bound the edges of the pockets with bias tape instead. It would've been possible to do by machine, and that would've looked much neater, but I didn't want to try to wrangle all the skirt fabric out of the way, so I did it by hand. And I had to hand-fell the sides of the pocket lining where they met the side seams of the skirt too, and I had to do it separately in white thread so it wouldn't show from a glance at the inside of the pockets. But providing you actually DID overlock the fabric edges and cut them out exactly alike, this method would've worked fine, and you could simply overlock all the way around the pocket pieces so you wouldn't have to hand-fell anything. I figured out overlocking after the side seams and used it successfully for the button placket and the center back seam.*this embroidery is not on the pockets, but I'm going to use it to make a skirt/petticoat next so the embroidery won't be wasted.
I could do this whole project so much better if I could start over from the beginning, even though I'm quite pleased with the result as is.
And this project was almost zero waste! There ended up being only about three or four square inches of the fabric leftover. However, I definitely look forward to doing everything more efficiently, neatly, and sewing-machine-aidedly in future. Although if I try to make any more wool skirts there will probably still be some hand finishing. I'm not sure if I'm really going to make up the second piece of fabric, though, because I don't love it and there's SO much of it - I think enough for a whole suit for somebody? - that it seems a shame to take a chunk out of it for an uninspired skirt. I'm not sure how best to pass it on to a good home, though, so I guess we'll see.
