Friday, May 24, 2013

(Sort of) copy of People Tree Skirt - Pt 2, the curse of the buttonholes.

By the end of part one I had cut out my four skirt panels and was just about to embark on an epic weekend of belated birthday cake making, sandwich and things on sticks construction, and a party for 10 (count 'em) five year olds on the Sunday.  I took the Monday off which meant I had time to sew some of the skirt together (and fall asleep in the chair at 4pm).

I dug out the pieces from where I'd hidden them from sticky fingers - pressed them again, there is a lot of pressing - then started the sewing.

I did one side seam of each fabric first, carefully making sure I had the equivalent panels matched up for when it's all sewn together (I have terrible trouble with 'seeing' things laid out, in my head!):

backside
Then did a check to make sure it was matching, it did!, so I decided I'd sew the other two side seams, and that I could sew the whole thing along the bottom edge to make a sort of 'bag' to turn inside out, and leave no hem seams showing.

Well.

That REALLY REALLY didn't work. I think I need more sewing-engineering experience - what I got was something ever so slightly 'puff-bally', and I knew it would never hang well. So out came that seam quick sharp. I then sewed together the waistband edge, and did a hem on each of the different fabrics, hopefully deep enough for it not to matter if you get a flash of the 'underskirt' from time to time, I zig-zagged round the raw edges, and then hemmed them:

Waist

Hem hem!
They came out the same length, I felt quite pleased about that.

The next job was to make the waistband. I made two strips - one of each fabric - sewed along the long edge, pressed it flat, pressed it over, made a small hem and sewed it to the skirt.

waist band innards
Then I did some button holes, I love doing buttonholes with the magic buttonhole mechanism on the machine:
Add caption
Unfortunately, despite the fun had in doing them, the buttonholes were all entirely wrong:

Wrong, wrong, wrong.
By now I was quite tired. What I should have done if I was a proper seamstress is take off the whole waistband, make a new one and done the buttonholes again. But since I am not (nor shall I ever be) on the Sewing Bee, I decided to fudge it instead. I found some matching ribbon in my tin:

It's a good job I am a slave to haberdashery
And sewed it over the offending buttonholes, using that as a tie instead of making the long tapes I'd originally intended. It's come out alright:

A fudge, but a pretty one!
Finished.
I wore it at a festival last week, and it's comfortable and fits me. Which is pretty good going for a first attempt. But now the UK is plunged once more beneath the jet stream of doom, summer already apparently over, I'm going back to my knitting for a bit.

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