SoNP Skirt #3: Shabby Chic

This (originally plain, and somewhat "meh") pink skirt is flattering and comfortable, and delightfully fluttery about the ankles in action, and I hardly ever wear it. That's because I bought two, and when deciding which to wear I reach, over and over, for the green one. For the Summer of No Pants week 3 project I decided to embellish this one with some simple machine applique and turn it from a forgotten garment in the back of the closet into something I will wear.

I got the idea to use on-point squares from the Sideways Squares Skirt in this book. The plan was to use many different fabrics from the scrap bin, but over and over when I lay them on the skirt they didn't feel just right. Until I grabbed a half-yard piece of this Amy Butler print:

... and it clicked. The effect is much more subtle than I'd planned ("subtle" not being a word that is used often in describing my color preferences), and I love it.

The skirt is a long A-line with large and rather oddly shaped godets in each side seam which result in a bit of a handkerchief hem look. You can see the shape and my embellishment layout a little better here (this color is closer to accurate, but harder to see):

I cut fabric squares in several sizes: 5, 4, 3, and 2". Largest are at the bottom, and the smallest rest between the lower two rows. At first I'd planned to fold under the edges of each square, but after pressing a few that seemed laborious. Plus, the skirt fabric (a linen-cotton blend) is very floppy drapey, so unhemmed squares seemed like a better choice.  I trimmed each square with pinking shears, pinned them in place, and sewed them down with a zigzag stitch. After washing, they should get nice and fuzzy around the edges. I figure a good "shabby chic" effect will mean I never have to iron this skirt again.

Here's another look at the result:

This was so easy and fun and quick to do. I may have to rummage in the closet for more clothes to embellish.

KF Diamonds: borders added

The quilt center is all sewn together, and today I added the inner border and chose the outer border fabric. Here it is up on the design wall: the blue outer border is still in raw pieces.

This isn't what I had planned. First off, I was going to use the darker chevron stripe (more red/brown than pink) for the inner border. Turns out this one works better, and is possibly not quite as obnoxious as I'd feared it would be.

For the outer border I was going to use Dancing Leaves in orange or Big Blooms in red, mostly because I have adequate yardage of those two. But my finished border size will be only 4: Big Blooms was just too BIG (blooms would not show at their best, so why bother). Dancing Leaves has a very strong repeat element and I would have had to waste a huge amount of (pricey! Kaffe Fassett!) fabric to cut the borders from similar enough parts of the print that they wouldn't look all lopsided. Oh well. Probably I'll use that fabric for the binding when I get to that stage.

So I grabbed my stack of Kaffe quilt books (eye candy! inspiration!), retreated to a lounge chair out on the deck, and leafed through them, looking at border treatments and hoping the perfect solution would either appear or bubble up. I briefly considered piecing a border from alternating red and blue prints in 4" squares (a size my dwindling stash could handle), but at this point anything other than minimal piecing seems like too much work. So I had the idea to do "random" strips of a few close, medium-tone, medium-size prints in blues. This neatly solved the problem of how to make a border from what's left in the KF bin without having to piece more than a little bit.

Back in the sewing room I pulled out these three... Clouds, Lake Blossom, and Asian Flowers (not sure those are the exact names) because they combine the blue and pink colors prominent in the center. The asian flowers is on a dark brown ground, but it goes well enough. I cut 5" strips of each fabric, then cut them down to random generous but not too long lengths, and slapped 'em up.

Voila! Perfect! I didn't even have to tweak it!!! Someone slipped something good into my creative juice today. I look forward to sewing this up, but might take a day or so to just leave it up as is and admire it, and think how clever I am to have come up with this solution... plus, I have some other stuff I need to do.

BTW: I took a whole bunch more photos, including some closeups, and this is the ONLY one that was in focus. This is a frequent, recurring problem. Perhaps I should invest in a tripod??

 

Kaffe Fasset Diamonds in progress

This is what 's been up on my design wall the past few weeks. It's a modification of a pattern from the new Kaffe Fassett book, and will be "side B" of the Pink Lattice lap quilt. Here I've stitched the framing strips around each diamond, but the blocks are not sewn together yet. Colors are a bit darker than shown.

I scaled the pattern down to better fit the lap quilt dimensions, which, with a 4-5" border all round, will end up at about 48x72. My diamonds are 6"x12". Most are fussy cut to highlight favorite floral bits of various fabrics (all but one are KF or KF Collective). My frame strips are were cut at 1.25" (.75" finished width) because I had some KFC "jelly roll" strips to use, and by splitting each 2.5" strip lengthwise I had enough to use each print twice.

I matched centers to frames as I cut, making sure that no combination was repeated. Not the best approach, but this is a 100% stash project. I had very limited quantities of some fabrics, which resulted in cutting more diamonds than ideal from the prints I had more of. I knew from the get-go that following Kaffe's alternating light-dark plan was not going to be possible, but I figured the fabrics are all so gorgeous that whatever I managed to pull off would still look pretty good.

My original plan was to alternate rows of (mostly) "red" and "blue" diamonds, but when I laid them out that way the frames did not play together well. So I gave up and just fiddled (and fiddled, and fiddled some more) over four or five days, taking another peek each time I walked past the sewing room, until I felt it was as good as it was going to ever be. The biggest challenge was keeping the several bold chevron stripe frames from ending up next to each other, cause as soon as they ganged up they stole the show.

The side and end half-diamonds are from complete ones sliced in half... which means each is short the seam allowance along the cut side, and I'm having to stretch those blocks to fit as I do the assembly. So far that hasn't caused any horrific problems, and since the frames are from jelly roll strips they are cut across the fabric width and are quite stretchy. Again, not the best approach: the result of combining stash limitations with a slapdash attitude to this particular project.

Ah well, I've never claimed to be a perfectionist, and this quilt's for me, me, me, and I'll love it anyway. I've been stitching the blocks together a few at a time since last week, and have only a few long seams to go. This one, like the "NTG" quilt I'm making for Mr. de Hilo, is going to be put away until I get the extension table thingie for my machine so I can machine-quilt them.

my sewing room needs one

The most brilliant idea of the week month year: I must make one of these for my sewing room.
(Thanks to "HowAboutOrange" for the link.)

I've been scribbling "next steps to complete X project" lists on scraps of paper and then wonder were I put them. On the wall, duh, where I can see them.

I'll need to test some fabrics (my stash is thin in the "light" color ranges) to find one that won't make whatever notes I write difficult to read.

Now, where did I stash those old poster frames? Fingers crossed my dry-erase markers will both write on and wipe off of aging plexiglass...

SoNP Skirt #2

Got another one done:

Fabric is Kaffe Fassett "Guinea Flower" that's been in the stash since I succumbed to impulse during a Fabric.com sale some time ago. I had in mind a summer dress, but the rows of flowers have a stronger linear/diagonal impact than I'd thought. Pondering how to cut a princess-seamed top from this for TNT Vogue 8232, and how to avoid having any of those little blossoms end up in an infortunate spot either above or below the waist, I gave up and set the fabric aside.

Eventually, as it so often does, my mind turned to thoughts of a skirt. And it kept imagining this fabric as a pretty summer skirt. Something slightly girly. With a flounce perhaps.

Something like New Look 6682, which I've commented on here and here. "I doubt I'll ever make it again," I'd said, documenting the pattern's flaws. Hah. As soon as I thought "skirt" for this fabric, I thought of this pattern. Shorter. Much shorter. And with the double flounce. This fabric wants to be flounced.

So I dug out the pattern, took a whopping 7" of length out of each skirt piece (which I'd lengthened 2" for version 1), and, after much fiddling, figured out how to squeeze all the necessary pieces for View D from my 2.5 yards of fabric: doable, but a tight fit. I also decided I would work with the excessive ease, rather than try to remove it, and make this up as a drawstring waist (whee! no zipper!). I left about 2.5" of the top left side seam open, folded down another 1-3/8" at the waist to make a drawstrong casing, bringing the length, as planned, to the bottom of my kneecap.

This could turn out to be a fave summer skirt. I love the length, and the pale green, pink, and turquoise flowers will go with many different tops. (Ignore, please, the ratty old camisole I've mostly cropped out of these pics; it's what I had on, and as good anything else that's clean today). Too bad so many of my sleevless T's are showing their age. I'd like to make a top to go with this, maybe something in eyelet? I have a couple of patterns that might work, but no appropriate fabric, and the embargo isn't over for another two months.

Much as I love sewing, it's handy to have a bunch of cheap sleeveless T's in the closet, and I could use some fresh ones. I'll go shopping this week and see if I can find one or two that will go with this skirt.

Kyoto Skirt (muslin) photos

Yeah, took a while to get these taken. Here it is all, in all its a-size-too-small glory. I don't normally go around in skin-tight anything, but wanted a short-ish top for the photos, and this one was handy. I figured I'm documenting how I look in a skirt that's tighter than I'd wear in public, why not continue that theme on the top half?

Not a bad looking skirt, from this angle. I might even wear it, if I can shrink down enough to eliminate the slight pulling across the hips.

This back view's okay, too, considering.

I'm liking the pockets today. All these pastel florals are a bit frou-frou for me, but I might actually wear this some day. If it weren't for this view:

I don't know if this is just too much godet for my booty, or if it's purely a size issue, or if it's just starting at the worst place on my butt.

It didn't occur to me until I saw this shot that godet placement might be a problem. Ordinarily I add at least 1" to any skirt, often 2", as I'm 2"-4" taller than patterns are designed for. But this one I left alone, because out of the envelope it's exactly the length I was going for (the front hits just at mid-knee, which is shorter than as shown in the illustrations and HotPatterns videos). On the other hand, I'm wearing this about an inch below my "natural waist" since that's where I like my skirts to sit. So you'd think those two factors would cancel each other out.

I do still want to make this from a solid, lightweight twill, with all the bias trim and top-stitching. But I think I'll put this pattern on back burner for a bit. Going up a size is easy enough, but I don't like all of those folds of fabric bursting out of my butt, and will need to mull over what to do about that.

SoNP Skirt #1

Skirt #1 for the "Summer of No Pants" challenge (a skirt a week for 4 weeks). Given the current fabric embargo in force here, I'll be making all my 4 from stash.

This is last week's skirt, and I did get it done on time (finished Sat. am), really. It's the pics part that slows me down. Even with a flash it was tough to get these to come out. I need to find a better photo location somewhere around here, but that's a task for another day.

As you can see, this is another pieced, slapdash, summer skirt made up of various quilting cottons; TNT self-drafted pattern; comfy drawstring waist. Here's the back:

Skirt #2 is on track for completion by the end of the week, but no promises about when I'll have a photo of it!