Wednesday 29 January 2014

The Pink Skirt Story

Hello again!

Yesterday I left you dangling, wondering what would become of my lovely pink charity shop skirt, didn't I?  Well, I have shortened it and also made one or two other adjustments.


Firstly, I decided that it would need to be shortened by 10cm.  I don't know if you can make out my tailor's chalk mark in orange, in the above picture (at 0cm), but I marked 10cm up from the bottom of the skirt and then marked another one 3cm down from that (in white chalk).  The 10cm chalk line would be the finished length and the line which I folded up on.  The White chalk mark was the lined that I cut the skirt on, giving me a 3cm hem.  So I marked all the way round the bottom of the skirt which took a while due to all those pleats!  The then carefully cut along the white lines, and pressed up the 3cm hem with a steam iron on the orange lines.  At this point I just pressed flat and didn't worry about the pleats.


You can just see my fold mark here on the top left if you look.  Then I simply finished the raw edge of the skirt with a zig-zag stitch on my machine.  I didn't want any extra bulk of a double-folded hem - it had to lie as flat as possible due to the pleating.


Next I hand stitched the hem in place with a hemming stitch



Then of course I had to deal with the lining.  This time I shortened it by 13cm as I hate it when you can see a lining underneath the skirt


The lining was not pleated in the same was as the skirt - just a straight lining, so it was relatively easy to zig-zag on the machine.


As this is a woollen skirt and therefore one which will need to be dry-cleaned, I thought these hem finishes would be sufficient.  Had it been a skirt that I would wash and dry more often I might have come up with some better finishings!

Next I needed to put those pleats back into the finished hem which was done with a good amount of steam and some gentle pressure on the folds.


Eventually, the skirt looked like this.  It was shorter, but still closely resembling a Miss Marple staple.  Hmmmm, what now?  I'm thinking it's the pleats - they're too long.  So next I decided to shorten them which was very easy - I simply unpicked them up to the point I wanted them and then secured them with a little stitch.


Here is the finished skirt.  Shortened by 10cm and the pleats lifted.  It hangs just below the knee, which is a good length for me.  I can't really tell whether this is going to be a success until it is teamed with the pink tank top, which I am about to deal with.

So now I am going off to my lovely knitting group which meets in the local wool shop and I'm taking my pink tank top with me in the hope that someone can help me pick up all the stitches around the neckline.


I tried picking them up yesterday after I'd sewn the shoulders together and made a right hash of it!  Wish me luck :-)

No comments:

Post a Comment

I love reading your comments, so please don't be shy and tell me what you think.