By the end of part one I had cut out my four skirt panels and was just about to embark on an epic weekend of belated birthday cake making, sandwich and things on sticks construction, and a party for 10 (count ’em) five year olds on the Sunday. I took the Monday off which meant I had time to sew some of the skirt together (and fall asleep in the chair at 4pm).
I dug out the pieces from where I’d hidden them from sticky fingers – pressed them again, there is a lot of pressing – then started the sewing.
I did one side seam of each fabric first, carefully making sure I had the equivalent panels matched up for when it’s all sewn together (I have terrible trouble with ‘seeing’ things laid out, in my head!):
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| backside |
Then did a check to make sure it was matching, it did!, so I decided I’d sew the other two side seams, and that I could sew the whole thing along the bottom edge to make a sort of ‘bag’ to turn inside out, and leave no hem seams showing.
Well.
That REALLY REALLY didn’t work. I think I need more sewing-engineering experience – what I got was something ever so slightly ‘puff-bally’, and I knew it would never hang well. So out came that seam quick sharp. I then sewed together the waistband edge, and did a hem on each of the different fabrics, hopefully deep enough for it not to matter if you get a flash of the ‘underskirt’ from time to time, I zig-zagged round the raw edges, and then hemmed them:
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| Waist |
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| Hem hem! |
They came out the same length, I felt quite pleased about that.
The next job was to make the waistband. I made two strips – one of each fabric – sewed along the long edge, pressed it flat, pressed it over, made a small hem and sewed it to the skirt.
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| waist band innards |
Then I did some button holes, I love doing buttonholes with the magic buttonhole mechanism on the machine:
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| Add caption |
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| Wrong, wrong, wrong. |
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| It’s a good job I am a slave to haberdashery |
And sewed it over the offending buttonholes, using that as a tie instead of making the long tapes I’d originally intended. It’s come out alright:
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| A fudge, but a pretty one! |
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| Finished. |
