January Sunshine!

January in North Carolina is a mystery to me. Just a few days ago it was freezing and then yesterday it was 45 and sunny! I suppose the ten degrees between 30 and 40 make a big difference. For those not-so-sunny days, though, I now have a cheerful yellow (YELLOW) skirt to perk myself up!

I don\’t have too much to say about the pattern or the construction. I used McCalls 7704 from 1965, and it\’s was a quick-and-easy project with minimal fuss. I didn\’t make any pattern adjustments. I\’m wearing it with my t swift top.

Do you like my new jacket? NO I did NOT sew this (haaahaha), but I decided to include it in my pictures because it\’s upcycled! Plus it makes me feel like this:

I got it from Olga Road–I\’m not positive about their production practices or anything but they make these jackets out of old leather trench coats and things. They aren\’t paying me to say this (although if they want to send me another jacket, I would not say no, duh).

Back to the sewing!

Some interior shots (inside the garment, and inside my house):

For the hem, I simply folded up twice and slip stitched it to the lining. This isn\’t really the best treatment for such a thick wool–really it would be better to use some hug snug and just fold it up once–but while hemming, I wanted to retain as much potential future length as possible. I was worried I had hacked off too much! After trying it on again, I think it looks good, but I guess there\’s no harm in having a little extra length in the hem, you know, in case I go through a growth spurt…

I decided to go with the pattern instruction for the zipper insertion since it was a new way I hadn\’t done it before. You snip the fabric and lining at the end of the zipper so that they work as one (like interlining) for zipper insertion and still look nice at the bottom. If I made and lined this skirt again, I wouldn\’t do it like this, I would just hand stitch the lining down or sew the lining and fashion fabric together the whole way down and hong kong bind it or something. As written, I ended up with raw edges, which I just zigzagged over (I don\’t have a serger).

I\’ve officially adopted the lapped zipper as my very favoritest ever. It is easy, seemingly foolproof, and I love the way it looks with a button tab, as shown here. Mine look much neater than my centered zips, too, with only one sewing line to try and keep even.

I originally saved this fabric to make a pencil skirt with. It is EXACTLY pencil yellow (for reference, the walls of my house below look blue, and that is because they really are blue, not blue-tinted white). I decided instead to try out this more a-line silhouette, which I don\’t think I have a single thing with. Now I do, and I love it. Next quandry: what colors would you wear with insane yellow??

xxx

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