Pencil Skirt Obsession

Starburst Skirt Burda 05/2012

I'm not going to lie to you. Ever since I got this particular Burda in the mail I have been lusting after it heartily.     I even want it in this tangerine color. I probably won't, but STILL.  <3 I love high-waist anything now (full convert) and pencil skirts are my signature item at work.  I only have one very good one, and one passable green one.  Both are the same pattern, Vogue 8672 View E  but the green one was out of a ponte knit and I didn't take into account the amount of stretch needed or how much it shows tucked in clothing.

Which leads me back to the above skirt.  Its for stable knits and has no zipper drafted into the pattern. A thing I did not notice until my friend Ilanka said "Wow, that's a tight skirt!".  Uh... she was right. Ooooooh.  Its for knits.  Which led me to the conclusion that they must of photo-shopped out a lot of lumps and bumps cause that blouse is going to show through, I don't care how skinny you are.  Drat.  So it went on the back burner.

So, during long tedious nights at work I've defended myself but going to my happy place, sewing. I've been thinking about how to construct this skirt to make it as sculpted as it looks here but still retain its allure with tucked-in blouses, and not go OMG PANTY LINE! The only answer I've come up with is underlining.

Aaaah yes. Underlining. You are my new best friend. Its almost impossible for me to make a garment out of woven now without underlining it.  Or at least thinking about underlining it. But this would be the first time delving into the realm of underlining a knit of any type, though ponte knit would be the most sensible one to try first, me thinks. In this case it would need to be a fabric that has as much stretch as the ponte itself, and I would probably use make sure the waistline facing had ridgeline stays as well. I realized I could use a silk stretch charmeuse after hitting up the Dharma Trading Co. for my evening gown underlining. I didn't add the stretch charmeuse to my order. I may go back and get some more later in August, depending on how much I can get done on what I shall hence forth refer to as The Gown.

I still haven't done a full post on that yet. *sighs*  I shall. Very soon.

So what sewing challenges have you been puzzling over lately?

In Which I Wear Horizontal Stripes.

SO this is what I would have been sporting had I made it to Oona's Birthday Bash! (I'd probably had snagged some moonshine from the brother-in-law's still while I was at it.)




I did it! I finished a dress! This is from the July 2011 BurdaStyle magazine and you can get the pattern here. To me it looked like the perfect summer dress for the days that make me scream "I'm MELTING I'M MELTING!!". Not quite so bad as Arizona, but bleh.

I'm really proud of how the binding detail on the front slit turned out. Click to embiggen!

I wish I had taken some pictures of the modification process. I might have but I don't know where they got off to. So the list of mods are:

1) Three inches to the bust. If this didn't have the giant slit down the front I would have added five. This also added inches to the waistline and length in the front.

2) Rounded shoulder/upper back adjustment. I work a computer job, forward shoulders are a work hazard.

3) Length and width in the back to accommodate my bodacious booty.

4) Omitted the pockets. The thing I want to put in my pocket most often is keys and phone. Pockets on these flimsy materials really just don't seem to work for something that heavy/bulky.

And this was all from a Burda size 44. And this is also my wearable muslin. I used fabric that came from Mom's stash eons ago. I'm sure its at least 20 years old. My only gripe is I put the elastic in a little too low for my taste and oh, don't mind the not-quite-matching stripes. This was not an easy one to match and I've never done it before. Ooops.


Mom Update: She's really not doing well at all. Any of the times I've gone to visit she's been sleeping and unable to be roused. The nurses tell me she has periods of being awake and talking, but somehow I keep missing them.