Sewing

Oops – Or Better Planning Needed

You may remember that I was going to make a skirt for my daughter using some black fabric printed with roses. Well, yesterday I got the pattern ready and laid it out on the fabric. It was then I realised that I have made a critical mistake – I hadn’t checked the width of the fabric before buying it. The fabric was only 115cm wide, but I needed it to be 140cm, especially as one of the pattern pieces was 60cm wide from the fold.

So after trying to think of a way to use the fabric I already had, I finally admitted defeat and headed to the haberdashery to buy some new fabric.

My daughter had asked for something tartan if possible (if I couldn’t find the same fabric but wider). I sent her the above picture for her to choose a colour and she went with the black (you’ve got to love smartphones!).

Fortunately, as it is polyester it didn’t require pre-washing, so I could start cutting out pattern pieces straight away.

I did a test seam, as the fabric was fraying a lot. I tried out both a French seam and just stitching along the edge before seaming.

The French seam was far too bulky, so I had to go with the stitching 5mm from the edge of the fabric.

The Burda miniskirt pattern instructions were surprisingly difficult to follow. Especially the lack of instructions on how to make the pleated part. Fortunately, I found this set of instructions that helped me work out the pleated skirt.

After a hectic afternoon (and evening) of sewing, the skirt was finished. One happy teenager!

NB: a word of warning, if you are going to make this pattern add some extra for the hem. I added an extra 4cm, but only used 2cm for the hem because it came up very short!

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