An accidental skirt
A surprisingly large number of my sewing makes are some variety of accidental, because I struggle with giving up and admitting defeat when I mess something up, which is all the time when I'm sewing! And by accidental, I mean that I just turn them into something smaller than I originally intended, which is why I have a lot of handmade tank tops!
Anyway, despite the fact I also keep telling myself to stop buying fabric, I picked up this super-soft striped knit fabric at Jo-Ann's a few weeks ago, and it rocketed to the top of my list, mostly because I knew it would theoretically be a quick sew, and I desperately need summer clothes to wear to the office.
I've saved this picture on my pinterest board forever, and I've always been a huge fan of the pencil dress silhouette:
I actually have already made a similar style one once, but I gave it away earlier this year because it was too big:
Anyway, I finally gave up, chopped it off about 3" above my waist, serged the top, folded it down and sewed it to make a channel for a 2" wide elastic waist, and voila, it's a knit pencil skirt!
I'm really tempted to go back to Joann's and get more of the fabric to remake the dress, but I do have plenty of other projects to do, and this works as summer office-wear too, so we'll see.
Anyway, despite the fact I also keep telling myself to stop buying fabric, I picked up this super-soft striped knit fabric at Jo-Ann's a few weeks ago, and it rocketed to the top of my list, mostly because I knew it would theoretically be a quick sew, and I desperately need summer clothes to wear to the office.
I've saved this picture on my pinterest board forever, and I've always been a huge fan of the pencil dress silhouette:
I actually have already made a similar style one once, but I gave it away earlier this year because it was too big:
I kept thinking about the striped version though, so that was what immediately came to mind when I saw this knit fabric. I "drafted" my pattern (I always feel silly saying that when it's something like a knit tank dress), and I brought in the shoulders a bit, to make it a bit more of a racer-back style. I cut it out and carefully sewed up the side seams and shoulder seams a couple of weeks ago (paying such careful attention to stripe matching), and last night I had a little free time, so figured I would add the neck and arm bands.
I had carefully planned out how I wanted the bands to be the white stripes with just a touch of the black showing, and inserted the arm bands with no incident, but for some reason the neckband I just couldn't get right! I inserted it twice, but both times it was just too short. It's hard to see in the above photo, but in the back of the neckline (on the right of the photo) there is a big folded mess, where I just couldn't stretch the band enough. Because I serged it, I just cut off the serged portion (I've tried to thread-rip though that mess before, and just don't have the patience. Unfortunately, doing that twice meant I didn't have any shoulder left to sew onto for a third try. Look how cute it is though (ignore the poor lighting and my crazy hair)!
Check out my stripe matching (also ignore how incredibly messy my sewing room is)!
I'm really tempted to go back to Joann's and get more of the fabric to remake the dress, but I do have plenty of other projects to do, and this works as summer office-wear too, so we'll see.
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