shebit, posts by tag: crafts - LiveJournal

The nice fabric shop around the corner from work has plain, thinnish cotton in a variety of colours for something like £1.30/metre, so I think I'm going to measure up an existing skirt to get an idea of measurements, buy enough of the cheap cotton and make my mockup from that, so that, all being well, my muckup mockup will actually be a wearable skirt, rather than just something made out of something horrible.

I'm planning on trying to recreate a pretty wrap skirt I tried on, which had two contrasting layers, the inner layer sticking out a couple of inches at the hem and wrap edge. It means twice the fabric (two colours) but gets around the thinness issue with the cheap cotton.

I was thinking white with a dark turquoise under layer. If it works I could use any excess of the turqoise to applique a design (possibly a few flowers) onto the white. Oh, and the ribbon in the contrast colour. I havn't decided on my inner fixing method yet - button/loop, hook and eye or try to make a slit so that the ribbon pokes out and goes all the way around. At least there'll be no fiddly zips with a wraparound. Any suggestions from the seamstresses out there? I'm thinking that the hook and eye will be the simplest, and if I put in a couple of hooks an inch appart I could vary the size slightly as I please (for fat and thin days *g*).

How bad an idea is newspaper as patern paper? Will I get newsprint all over my nice white cotton?

Of course, a major obstacle is talking moose_biscuit into letting me use her sewing machine (and getting her to remind me how to use it, because I haven't used a machine in maybe ten years).

Can any of the seamstresses out there give me an idea of how much fabric I'd need for a knee-length A-line or wraparound skirt, bearing in mind that I'm not particularly stick-like (where stick-like < size 18). Is it largely a matter of seeing if the fabric width is more than enough to go around me, and if it is then assuming a metre will give me pleanty of room to maneouvre on the length?

I've decided that for this summer I'm going to acquire/make a couple of skirt patterns and make my own skirts. I've even found some gorgeous cotton for the first, which is only about £7/m.