This week, finally finished with finals and deadlines, I dove into my stash of new patterns. For my first official garment of summer, I settled on one of Colette Patterns newest offerings: the Ginger skirt. The design is a simple A-line skirt with some waistband variations. At first I was reticent to shell out $16 on such an easy pattern, but the photos were so cute! The bias-cut striped version especially held divine shades of Kate Spade. Visions of lovely, summery skirts filled my mind and I gave into temptation. After all, my wardrobe is decidedly lacking in A-line skirts.
As it turns out, there's a reason for that. They look dreadful on me. Apparently when one has hips the size of small principalities, a skirt that's all angles just doesn't flatter. It's so unflattering, in fact, that I'm not even bothering to hem the thing and treat it as a laundry day skirt. I'm also not posting pictures of me in it for the internet to save in its infinite memory. The last thing I need is to be Googled by a cute Irish golfer, only to have that monstrosity show up. Suffice it to say: I looked like an ice-cream-cone-shaped twill-covered whale. The part of Mary the Blonde Sewist will today be played by a chair, instead.
(Apologies for the wrinkles. I just couldn't bring myself to iron this!)I chose version 2, with the curved waistband, and made it up in a white cotton twill from JoAnn's. (I can't even tell you how thrilled I am that I didn't waste special fabric!) All in all, construction - without hemming - took about 2 hours. This is one quick pattern! Sarai from Colette Patterns specified that she designed both new patterns, Ginger and Violet, for beginners and it's obvious from the directions. Throughout the envelope, there are more helpful tips and definitions than usually found in Colette patterns. If the fit had worked out, this would have been a go-to pattern, just from the ease of construction itself.
Things I Changed:
- Nothing! Unless you count not finishing the hem or the inner waistband, after the shock of trying the skirt on.
- Everything! Well, everything fit-wise anyway. The major problem was that the skirt waistband hit me above my natural waist, which is not a good look for an hourglass shape. Visually, it rather merged my waist and hips area. Were I trying it again, I may go up a few sizes, so the skirt would sit closer to my hips than The Girls.
- Make a muslin! Or, my preferred option: use fabric you're not attached to for a wearable muslin.
- When inserting the inner waistband, follow the directions implicitly. Sarai's not lying when she says the instructions are counter-intuitive, but you will be rewarded with a fantastic finish, I promise.
- White cotton twill from JoAnn's, on sale for $5/yard.
For now, I'm tempering my woes with chocolate and - of course - other patterns. Those summer skirts are still haunting me, but this time I'm trying a pattern with a more flattering shape for my body. Friends, what was your last pattern disaster? Did you have vintage dress go awry or a coat pattern that ended up being a sewist's worst nightmare?
