My first skirt make in 10 years- The Kelly Skirt!

I am so excited... I actually spent a relaxing day at home today and did some sewing.. starting on my over ambitious sewing plan from last night.

This is my summary page of my adventures today making a wearable muslin of the wonderful new Kelly Skirt pattern by Megan Nielson.

I looked through my stash and the only skirt material I had was this novelty print denim which I had my doubts about at the time...and I had more doubts half way through... Pleated floral denim gave me 80s flashbacks... Which is when I started and did a lot of sewing as a teenager. And getting out my old Make it East index cards to look up how to do a lapped zipper, even brought back more teenage memories. And yes I do seem to have a thing about white and blue floral patterns! I do think that this fabric would be better in a plainer cut like Karen’s ginger. However, I must say that the top stitching to the hem helped a lot.

I didn’t have buttons or feel like all those buttonholes (using the buttonhole foot on my machine for the first time in over 10 years was exciting today!) so I changed perhaps the most important feature of this skirt pattern... Trust Liz to do that. HOWEVER... I have to say that today’s exercise was testing the cut of the pattern... And in summary I love it! Roomy without being bulky. And I do love the high waist too. AND I also dropped the hemline. Another important thing about this pattern is that it can cope with my sitting cross legged on the ground (sketching) and that I can see how to sew a security pocket into this skirt (more later)

I put my skirt on and went for a walk this afternoon (still had my home cardi on!) and then downloaded a timer app for my iphone and tried to take some photos! So I have included very bad photo of me wearing my skirt – holding my sketchbook as a security blanket (I had just completed a sketch!) I find this whole sewing blog taking photos of oneself wearing finished garment very much out of my comfort zone...but here I go starting the process. (I know there are lots of photos of me online sketching, but it is another thing totally to take a photo of yourself with the emphasis on your outfit!) BTW blue and brown is another BIG theme of mine.

BTW here is a photo of my old Make it Easy cards... they have been used so much. I learnt to sew by 'make it easy' fortnightly patterns in the 80s and doing textiles at school as well.