Wednesday 6 May 2009

Pleated Skirt - Finished

You might remember I made the body of this skirt from a rectangle. Now I laid the skirt flat and cut the bottom to a more natural shape.

I wanted the bottom edge to be folded, but if I did it, it would destroy the pleats there. I decided to put a lace there, but as you can see, I didn't manage to keep the pleats anyway...

That's why I sewed the pleats again on the lace - I started in the middle of the lace, I sewed to one end of it, to the other and then back to the start. Cut the thread and repeat many times:)

I'll probably wear it only at home:-) The pleats aren't OK, don't keep the shape and maybe would suit more at some other place of the design.

However, this is my first actual skirt (if you don't count the fire costume and the tier skirt project that ended up at the bottom of my drawer... hopefully not forever:-) ), and I keep this thought in my mind to have a little apology for this brown thingy :-D

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Pleated Skirt - Main Work

As I have the flag finished, I don't have a lot of urgent things to sew. I was drawing at school and a skirt design appeared. I wanted to make me a skirt for a long time..
The base is the same as at the fireshow skirt (but only from two pieces).
I made there a fake belt - I folded the upper edge of the shape and sewed through, then I folded it the right side to the right side, at the width of the belt-to-be.

I sewed a line and folded the belt back. I could afford this as the upper line of the skirt is straight.
I arranged the pieces at my hips with pins and got the right shape for the side seams. To make my work easier, I made them the same at both pieces:) I sewed one of them right and the other with one thread loose. I don't sew zippers very often.. I took one and basted it to the seam (through all layers). I put on a zipper foot and sewed from the bottom middle to the left and up along the basting. I cut the thread and made the other half symmetrically.
I'd thought I'd rip the seam out by pulling one of the threads, but I wasn't able to, I had to use a ripper..

I spent all day making pleats. They weren't many, but time consuming. I made the pleats and sewed a mm from the fold to make them stable. For the three pleats at the center back - sixteen lines sewed. Hooray:-P
When I had the front and back panel done, I could join them to the basic panel. I easily took it, put on the other piece and traced a line. I cut it out and sewed to the base.

The same at the front panel. Now I have a half-done skirt with open sides and unfinished bottom.

You can see I used a corduroy with hairs inside. Why? I don't like the look of the fabric:-D I made the skirt from what was left from the larp dress. Cheap fabric's ideal for experiments:)

I inserted this side pleat - I pinned it and sewed in. I had to do this because I didn't have enough fabric to make the skirt's body from only two parts.

All for today:-)