Hello Lovelies!
Oh wow. I know it has been awhile. I could bore you and bring you down by explaining my absence from blogging and from my world of vintage, but I'll spare you from that. I mean, unless that's something that you would actually like to hear about.
Today I am posting my FIRST completed garment sans supervision. That's right. The last garment I had sewn was a pair of PJ's in high school. High school was so nice. After every step I could take it to my lovely sewing teacher (Mrs. Burger!) and she would let me know how it looked. I could also run to her if I had any issues and she usually sewed along with us and would demonstrate each step. I've bought patterns over the years, but just never had the guts to put myself out there and actually attempt to sew them. I have always just been far too paranoid about messing up and wasting a ton of money, but I have finally made up something!
The Pattern: Advance 7729
The Fabric: Moda Bandana Bows and Dots Turquoise
One of my main insecurities about sewing is laying out the pattern pieces. I know that they give you a diagram, which by the way did not have the width of fabric that I was using, woes of a vintage pattern, but I still worry that the grain is not perfectly straight. This is probably the main reason why I never start the projects that I intend to make. Another reason may be that I hate cutting out the tissue paper! Luckily, this pattern was already cut and ready to go by someone long ago. However, I am transferring the pattern pieces onto sturdier material as I think I could make millions of circle skirts from it. Circle skirts are incredibly versatile.
Another anxiety for me is sewing zippers. Everyone always talks about how difficult they find it to sew in zippers. This project called for a kind of zipper that is no longer sold, but I asked the lovely We Sew Retro community about it and discovered that it is basically a regular zipper with a flap of fabric over it, a lapped zipper. Oh boy was I intimidated by this! Lapped zippers just look so complicated. I immediately binge watched several YouTube videos on how to sew a lapped zipper. Eventually I decided to go ahead and give it a shot and I think it turned out lovely for a first attempt. I also did not find it nearly as difficult as I had been anticipating.
So now I laid out the skirt to admire the beauty that is a full circle skirts. There is just something so satisfying about seeing the perfect circle of gorgeous fabric. I started to be very pleased with my work at this point and was gaining some confidence in my sewing. I had done all of this is one day and it was looking like a 'thing'.
Everything had been going so well, right? Well, here's where I ran into an issue. It was time to fit the waistband onto the skirt. Now, the skirt itself the waist is a square, but the corners were clipped in so that you can fit the square into a circle. I lined up my notches and starting pinning, but between the first set of notches I was having so much leftover fabric from the skirt. I kept unpinning and then repinning, trying to pull the waistband tighter. I just kept having left over bits! And it wasn't just a small amount leftover. It was at least an inch of extra fabric. I started to get really frustrated at the pattern maker (who is probably dead). "Who tries to make a circle out of a square?!"
So at this point I call on Calvin to try and help me. We figured that somewhere a measurement was wrong. I measured the waist band and it was exactly what it should have been. I then wondered exactly how I was going to figure out the waist measurement on the skirt pieces because it was a square with clipped in corners. This is where Calvin came in handy. He calculated and figured it out for me. In that process, we discovered that I had stitched a couple of my reinforcement stitches 1/8" too deep. This was where the disparity came from! And, incidentally, it worked out in my favor as the larger measurement would fit my current body better anyways. We crafted a new waistband only to realize we forgot to add the extra couple of inches to it for the overlap where the hooks and eyes would go. We redid the waistband AGAIN. Third time was a charm because it was perfect.
Now that everything was finished except for the hem, the directions instructed me to let it hang for at least 24 hours before hemming. I am glad that they did otherwise I would have hemmed it and finished the skirt all in one night! I learned that the parts of the skirt that are on the bias will stretch out over time and that is why it needed to hang for a while before hemming.
The pattern instructions suggested hemming by hand with a blind stitch. This was more anxiety for me because I truly suck at hand sewing and this was a stitch I had never done before. Once again, I ran to YouTube and binge watched tutorials on how to hem a circle skirt and how to blind stitch. It looked like a lot of people still machine stitch their hems, but I really wanted my skirt to have a more authentic feel to it. Therefore, I was going to have to spend a couple of hours hand stitching the massive hem of this circle skirt. Honestly, I was pretty impressed with my stitches.
I only turned under an inch because the skirt was already at a pretty suitable length for me. I didn't want it to end up being too short, but I also didn't want a teeny tiny hem to have to sew.
So yesterday I completed the hem and today I wore the skirt to class!
Outfit Details:
Blouse and Cardigan: Cherry Canary Vintage
Shoes: B.A.I.T. Footwear
I was so happy that it ended up looking just like the pattern envelope. Maybe I should have more faith in my sewing skills, eh? Either way, I went out and got compliments. It was so satisfying to tell others that I had made it myself. I am so completely proud of this skirt even if I don't think that it is perfect. I am still completely in love with it and think it turned out great for my first foray into sewing without supervision.
Do you sew vintage? What are your favorite patterns? I'd especially like to know the easier ones as I am looking for ideas for my second project! Also, would you like to see Sewspiration Sunday posts where I share the various photos I have saved in my phone as inspiration for future sewing endeavors?
xoxo,
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