A delightful morning tea with Sue and Megan this morning seemed like a good opportunity to crack out my new skirt for its maiden voyage. And we were meeting in Kings Park which is one of Perth’s most beautiful parks, so naturally I snuck along early avec camera et tripod to have a quicksticks photo session in a blissfully empty park, prior to our morning tea! haha, doesn’t everyone do weird stuff like that?! hmmm, don’t answer that!
This is skirt “d” from the Japanese pattern book shape shape, originally called Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, by Natsuno Hiraiwa. To be honest, I’m a little bit sad the book was renamed to be something cool and catchy in English. I liked its first title; I thought it quite charming and I expect it was also likely a more accurate portrayal of the original Japanese title’s intention. Much in the same way that I prefer the title “she has a mannish style” over the new English title “she wears the pants” and speaking of that I have a bit of a grumble about that very misleading new title since there are VERY FEW pants patterns in that book! and almost all of those gorgeous pants pictured are NOT available as patterns!! but more on that another day… I’m still quite glad I bought that book while it still had that original title too!
Back to my skirt, ahem.
I’ve made this pattern once before in silver grey, here. Oooh, I loved that skirt, and have been wanting to replace it in my wardrobe for years now. Now I have! although the colour is a little less, um, shall we say easy on the eye, haha!
This skirt is such a very simple and yet quite unique and clever design, cut in one piece with part on the straight grain and part on the bias. I think it can be seen from the different angles how the drape of the skirt changes quite distinctively around the skirt from the seam around to the seam again.
The bias dropped a bit before hemming, as it is wont to do, and I really liked how that looked, so hemmed the skirt without evening it off.
I like wearing it with the buttons situated just slightly asymmetrically to the left like here, putting the bias drape to the left/back, although the skirt can be swivelled around to wear it with the bias to the back or the right, or even the front although the longer length at the front looks a wee bit odd. You can wear it any way you like, in fact. Thus the original title of the book!
Please excuse the multiple pictures, but I think the skirt looks at its absolute very best when in motion, the bias part really comes to glorious, rippling, swishy life. Really, there’s few feelings more lovely that that of soft slithery fabric swirling around and against your legs as you walk. Bliss.
All my materials; fabric, lining and buttons, are from Fabulous Fabrics. My fabric is a rather eye-searingly intense chartreuse poly crepe, the same fabric I used for the armbands on my second Sea Change top, here, so the two should go nicely together. A two piece set-tacular! It’s a little nippy for that top here today, so I hauled out a warmer thing. Winter’s coming, yay. Please note the use of extreme sarcasm font there. We get very mild winters here, but I’m still that wuss that barely tolerates the slightest hint of cold in the air.
The crepe is on the sheer side so it needed a layer underneath, either a lining or a petticoat. I decided to line, and bought some poly knit of some sort or another, chosen merely for its excellent colour match. It’s quite stable stuff, so I merely cut it nice straight and even line at the bottom edge and left the lining unhemmed, it sits nice and flat and smooth and doesn’t show on the outside at all. I attached the lining to the skirt at the lower edge of the waist facing, and it does its job fine. However, the knit seems a little heavy, and I’m worried it actually drags the skirt down just a touch. I’m toying with the idea of detaching it, adding some elastic to the top edge and wearing it as a completely separate petticoat. Or maybe not, depends whether I can be bothered. We’ll see how it goes. Probably I’ll plan to alter, while wearing the skirt to the end of its natural life, unaltered. Story of my life, pretty much!
Details:
Skirt; skirt “d”, from Shape Shape by Natsuno Hiraiwa, chartreuse poly crepe, lined with knit
Shirt; Burda 8497 with added cuffs, white cotton, details here
Sandals; Zomp, from Zomp shoe boutique
