I Used "That" Fabric!

"That" fabric.
Lovely, soft, colorful fabric.
Bought so long ago.

Loved fabric.

Taken from the closet.
Stacked again.

Cut. Committed.

Courage rewarded. Lovely fabric.
Life with bright clean future.

And now for details. My fabric was bought from Fabric Mart quite a while ago. It is a wool challis, very finely woven. Several bloggers bought this fabric, I remember. Among them, Mardel and Carolyn. I believe both of them felted their fabric to make the hand thicker. I kind of liked the fabric 'as is', but waited...and waited...and waited...for inspiration to strike.

Quite a while ago, another sewing friend, Patti, suggested I could make good use of this fabric by making it into Vogue 2933.

I agreed that this fabric was perfect for this design, and played around for a while so as to use the border design to good effect. I finally decided to place the border at the bottom of the main skirt piece (expected), and then, down the sides. During normal wearing, you won't see the side border too much, but I think it will look good when I move around and a glimpse of the border on the side will be seen.



Since this fabric was so finely woven, and the skirt takes a LOT of fabric, which would be heavy, hanging from the seams, I stabilized with two different stabilizers, both sew-in. Above, you can see what I did on the side seams. I used a rayon seam tape - it's very thin but very strong. Strength is needed when holding up those "wings" that are attached to this skirt on both sides. I sewed this in on both sides of the seam. I extended the tape on both sides up into the waistband seam, so that the weight could hang from the waistband.

One thing I also did, which lends a neat clean look, is that I did NOT sew a continuous seam at the "U" (again, look above). I broke the stitching in three places. At the side seam, and at each side of the "U". Or is it a "V".

Anyway, this lets the seam float a bit. Kind of like in carpentry, you don't want to nail the flooring tight to the subfloor. You want it to float on top so that expansion and contraction - normal moving of the materials - does not impede the finished project. Or, while we're on the building analogies, kind of like when you build a steel and glass skyscraper. The building floats on the foundation, so that the building can sway a bit in normal wind. Kind of like tree branches that sway in the wind. They sway so they do not break, right? On my dad's side of my family, they build things for a living - in fact that' s what my dad and mom did when I was growing up. They built houses and specialized in high end custom work. From hanging around their business (they worked a LOT), I learned a bit about building things. I also got experience mixing mortar, painting, installing insulation, rough carpentry (VERY rough), and so on, by working around my parents' business. So to summarize, from being around my parents' business as a kid, I know enough so that I can identify most wood on sight, and can be a real pain in the ass to builder/contractor -types.

Below is a photo of the waistline seam, where it joins to the waistband. I sewed a strip of silk organza in that seam.
The skirt will be fun to wear with a turtleneck sweater and black boots. And the color is such that I will be able to wear it well into spring, with a lighter top and maybe black sandals.