More fun with wearable muslins! My frustrations with shirring and my sewing machine troubles drove me to experiment with a ribbed-waist full-skirt alternative. And surprisingly enough, it turned out pretty cute!
This thing is literally two rectangular tubes forced together--a 54" wide tube of cheapo $1.50/yard poly gingham for the full skirt and a 16" wide tube of black cotton lycra ribbing from Jo-Ann's for the yoke. I sewed the skirt rectangles together, gathered them at the top, serged them to the yoke, did a 6" blind hem on my conventional machine, and that was it!
What's that you say? "But Mikhaela, I thought your sewing machine was tragically broken and needed to go to the shop?"
Yeah, well, about that. I normally pride myself on careful troubleshooting. I will sit patiently rethreading and oiling and delinting my serger for hours until it behaves, for example. But sometimes I forget that computerized machines like my Platinum 730 can have normal physical problems, too--like built-up lint under the bobbin area. Lots of it.
Well, that's a long and expensive trip to the repair shop saved!
But back to the skirt. I'll post a step-by-step tutorial of how easy this thing is to "draft" and construct later, but for now, I'm trying to decide if I should go this ribbing route with my mini-wardrobe contest reversible skirt... or give shirring one more go! Which would be cuter?
Yaaay! it's great to have a working sewing machine. :) I'm glad to hear that you are back on track!
ReplyDeleteRose in SV
That's great that you got your machine back!! Personally, I'd give the shirring a shot one last time, it would be really cute. But, as someone who has never successfully managed to shirr anything....I think this is a great backup plan!
ReplyDeleteGlad your machine is back! I agree, I'd give shirring one more short. I think it'd be a little bit more different than the ribbing/lycra (cause isn't that what naternity panels usually are?). But this is super-cute!
ReplyDeleteThe skirt looks great. I've just tried Vogue 1061 which has pants with a similar waistband and I'm keen to try a skirt with a rib waistband. This ribbing might be more comfortable to wear than shirring.
ReplyDeleteThat looks really cute! I like it better than the shirring...
ReplyDeleteI love the ribbing. My daughter is about halfway through her pregnancy and when she comes home to visit in a couple of weeks we are definitely going to whip up some skirts like that! Good job!!!
ReplyDeleteCute skirt!
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