Hey! I’ve made this new skirt. Actually I’ve made lots of new things lately and just haven’t yet blogged them… oops! Getting onto that, asap! Hehe, actually a good thing about me-made May is that it kinda forces me to blog as yet unblogged things that I want to wear that day. Well it means I hav
e to, otherwise… what would I link to?? *horrified gasp* O, the shame of having nothing to link to!
Pattern: the Megan Nielsen Axel skirt. I bought this pattern a few months ago, on one of the several occasions I’ve wandered into Potters Textiles in fruitless search of the Dove blouse pattern. The Dove seems to be a pattern that is perpetually sold out… yes, I could have bought a pdf but I kinda had my heart set on a paper pattern. Mostly because I adore Megan’s illustrations that she does for the envelope. Aren’t these adorable? I also have another, different Megan Nielsen pattern that I have recently finished too… but that shall wait until another day and its own separate blog post…. 😉
I made the short, straight version 2 only without the waist ties because this one is actually just my trial version of the pattern… I was toying with the idea of using it for one of my Melbourne fabrics and just wanted to test it out for fit first. This is a pattern designed for firm fabrics with some stretch, because it is a tight, form-fitting pattern, but in quite a nice way I think. The style actually reminds me a LOT of the figure-hugging little pencil skirts we used to wear to high school in the 80’s. Btw, and going off on a random tangent… if you want to see a daggy homemade mockup of my old school uniform; I put this one together for a school reunion a few years ago…
Fabric: a stretch polyurethane laminate “pleather” from Spotlight. I’d originally bought several metres of this stuff on superDUPER special; I had the thought of making either shoes or a raincoat… then I went off it and shoved it away and out of sight. As you do! I’ve made quite a lot of things out of this stuff in the past, here, here, here, here and here! Some have been more successful than others and so I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the stuff 😉 When I was searching for something to run up a muslin/trial thing I thought “oh what the heck this’ll do”, made it up, and you know what?! I’m actually liking how it turned out, like, A LOT! It’s like an old-fashioned love story; fabric and pattern met, eyes locked across the room, hearts went a-pitter-pat, the stars aligned, fireworks exploded, champagne corks opped, they rode off into the sunset together and are bound to live happily ever after.
Some details: I cut the front on the fold so as to eliminate that unnecessary centre front seam; also, to accommodate my ahem, pear shape; I pro-actively graded out from an S waist out to an M at the hips. And I’m pretty happy with the fit. See, this is why we sew! Style-wise; it’s an extremely simple, no-fuss, zero-drama design, with absolutely no closures; just the simplest of bands for a waistband that you pull up over your hips. Not even kidding, this took me like a few minutes to whip up, tops.
simple stretch waistband
I’ve learnt in the past that this pleather doesn’t hem well… so I just cut a sharp clean edge using my rotary cutter, and angled the seam allowances inside the skirt so there’s no danger of them peeping out under the lower edge. 
Also, it’s tricky to press, but does look about a thousand times better if you do… it’s best to press on the underside and use scrap fabric when you’re going over the seams, the plastic right side of the fabric will soften and melt ever so slightly and I found I had to peeeeel off the pressing scrap after pressing. So it’s best to be quick and not let the iron linger on for too long! Some more of my tips for sewing with leatherette or pleather are here and here
Details:
Skirt; MN 2207 (Megan Nielsen Axel), terracotta polyurethane laminate “pleather”
Top; own design variations on the Epaulette cut & sewn from the Japanese pattern book “she has a mannish style”, also called “she wears the pants” by Yuko Takada, apricot crepe, details here
Shoes; designed and made by me, details here
Location: along the South Perth foreshore
Great outfit! Such fab colour combo on you.
thank you Sarah! xx
Ooh, now I feel the need for one of these. This is gorgeous!
thank you Sue! xx
This is a gorgeous skirt, and outfit! I love the colours and the style of your top.
thank you Kathryn! I love these soft apricot-y colours too 🙂
Love your skirt Caroline and that is one of my favourite colours honestly. Every time I see a car in this colour I bug my husband about getting ours painted that colour 🙂 I’ve never sewn with “pleather” so I’ve bookmarked your tutorials on how to sew with it in case I decide to do that…one of my long term fantasies is to make a leather jacket but I remain a LONG way off from doing that 🙂 I have the Dove and Axel! This Axel has been in my pile of unexplored patterns for a while and the Dove! I waited and waited and waited until Megan released it finally in print and the day she did I ordered it 🙂 In love with this top. I didn’t tuck this one away – it sits at the back of my cutting table 🙂
thank Kathleen! I think your Dove and Axel will make an absolutely awesome ensemble, they were made to go together!
The colour is so you!
thanks Catherine! I think so too 🙂
What a fabulous outfit! I love those trees you are standing in front of.
thanks Shirley! they are melaleuca, or paper barks 🙂
I LOVE this skirt. Great job!!
thanks so much Beth! xx
Love this skirt – beautiful!
thank you Tomasa! xx
What a nice pattern, I didn’t have it on my list until now though. So thanks for sharing 🙂 The fabric works very well with the pattern and the cut off hem looks so neat!
I am amazed that you were able to get such a close fit with this fabric and an elastic waistband! I thought you had used an invisible zipper until I read the pattern!!! Beautiful fit!
thanks ladies! Pencil girl; the fabric is stretchy enough so that you can pull it over your hips… I used a zig-zag stitch to sew the band to the skirt.. I should have mentioned that, whoops! and have altered the post to say so.
I can see why you changed your mind and now like the fabric. The skirt looks lovely, actually the whole outfit does. I know that the fabric has stretch but I still thought it would need a closure of some sort though. Great job!
Love this skirt and the fabric is perfect for it, interesting it has enough stretch to pull over your hips with no closure.
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