The Evolution of a Fabric Plan

Some years ago I bought 2.7 metres of a pale peach linen with the idea that I would be using it to make a Halloween costume. I never made the costume, the plan for it fell by the wayside, and the linen sat about until this year, when I began to think about what could be done with it. It's too pale a shade to really become me, but I began to think that, while it wouldn't be such a good idea to use it to make a dress for me out of it, I could make a peach linen skirt that would be well away from my face (as long as I put some self-tanner on my milk-white legs, that is).

For this project I chose Vogue V7937, view B. It's a well-cut pattern with some very attractive options, but Vogue Patterns did screw up on the drafting. I got the skirt far enough along to put in the waist facing and found it was MUCH larger than it was supposed to be: too big for the waist facing I had cut in the same size, much larger than the measurements said it was supposed to be, and too big for me. No, it wasn't anything I had done. I went on a pattern review site and found the posters there all complaining about the same thing. Some of them dealt with it by cutting down the sides, but mine were already so narrow that the tabs barely fit on them, I didn't want to redo the zipper, and the middle pieces looked disproportionately wide, so in the end I ripped out both seams and top stitching on the middle sections, trimmed them both down by half an inch on each side, and then put them back in again. The skirt was still a touch bigger than it was supposed to be according to the pattern measurements, but I was able to make the waist facing work with it by cheating the seam allowances somewhat, and the skirt looked better on the whole.

This pattern should also have a lining option. It's fine not to line a linen summer skirt, but the pattern lists wool crepe and wool fabrics among its suitable fabric options, and those need to be lined. I'll be able to improvise one when I make the two wool suiting skirts I've been planning to make in the future, but that and the sizing screw up has meant extra work for me that I should not have had to do.

The finished skirt, with a brown t-shirt. I used an invisible zipper for this skirt, as I had a 22" one on hand in EXACTLY the right shade that I just had to cut down to 7". I had buttons on my button tin that worked well with it. I want to knit a dark brown sleeveless brown top to put with this skirt, I'll wear the two pieces with dark brown sandals, and I'm keeping an eye out for a thrift shop silk scarf in coordinating colours that I can tie around my hair to pull the whole look together. It should be a nice spring and summer look by the time I've gotten it together.

I still have about a metre and a half left of the peach linen fabric, but I've got a plan involving my friend's little girl's birthday in May. Stay tuned!