Second Verse, Same as the First

Does anyone else go to "I'm Henery the Eight, I am" when they hear that, or is it just me?  It was the first thing that popped into my head when I laid out the pattern Simplicity 2655 for the second time. I am so in love with this pattern.  I will confess that there was a skirt in between the first and second versions of this.  I struggled a bit with it so I felt justified in trying to replicate the success I had the first time around.

I can easily say this skirt was a smash hit for me.  Just the right length and I have several blouses that go so well with the fabric.  The best part was using a fabric that's been lounging in my stash for somewhere around 10 years!  The fabric looks like an embroidered denim, but the colorful swirls are woven into the fabric.  At 60" wide, I started with over 4 yards of fabric.  A marathon ironing session with my favorite Faultless Premium Starch. Yes, I do launder, iron AND starch my fabric before I cut into it.  I love the smell of hot starched fabric.  It makes me antsy with anticipation.  I think that might make me a sewing geek.

A second round with the pattern confirmed that it's a breeze and a total hit with me.  I cut a straight 14 and the fit is perfect on my hips.  My only other alteration was chopping 3" off the length of the skirt.  I stand 5' 4" and the shorter length leaves the skirt falling perfect mid-calf on me.

For those of you wondering, no I didn't wear it with the ankle socks! That was just for the photo shoot, courtesy of the rockin' hubs.  He thoughtfully humors me and chops off my head for photos so I don't have to worry about how my hair looks after a marathon sewing session (it was horrible!).  A pair of sleek black heels finished off the outfit for work.

Mad Sewing Skillz

My friend Denise says I have them.  I'm not sure they're mad skillz, but skillz are skills.  Simplicity 2655, view b, no pockets.  While I'm constantly shoving my phone into my jeans pockets, I find that I'm not a big fan of pockets on skirts or dresses.  With this in mind, I am relegating skirts to Mondays, where I spend 90% of my day parked in my office.  It's not going to keep me from leaving my phone in someone else's office, but the odds are lower.

What I do have is a rockin' grey skirt to wear to work in the morning.  Skillz or not, I count that as a win.

The fabric is a recent stash addition by comparison to what's hanging out in my bins.  It's marinated in stashdom for a mere 4 months.  I picked it up in a moment of weakness when the local fabric store had a half off sale.  There is only so much this girl can resist when it comes to fabric and 50% off is not one of those things.  I bought it with no particular use in mind.  I just couldn't keep my hands off of the bolt.  I walked past it twice before toting the bolt around the store for a good 20 minutes then gave up and bought 2 1/2 yards.

The pattern itself requires little of the mad skillz, basic skillz will do just fine.  It has five pieces, all of which have to be cut twice. After laying out the pieces in the overly complicated fashion recommended by the pattern, I folded the fabric is half, selvages together and then in half again so that the folds and selvages were stacked. After that, cutting was a complete breeze, once per piece through 4 layers of fabric.  Each piece fit perfectly with about a quarter of a yard left over.  The pattern calls for 2 1/4 yards, so dead on with what I had and it makes me wonder why anyone would follow the complicated cutting diagram.

Sewing went fast.  Start to finish, not including fighting with the serger to get it rethreaded, I spent less than 2 hours behind the machine.  I serged all the vertical seams first, then sewed them up leaving the zipper side seam open.  Iron, iron,  iron.  Back to the serger to serge all the horizontals, which are curved, which means I had to resist the urge to plow through them.  Been there, done that, scrapped the end results because nothing lined up.  Curves can eat your lunch if you aren't paying attention.

Patience persevered.  Every single seam lined up,  Every edged matched perfectly.  The horizontal seams were pinned and sewn in record time.  Iron again then off to tackle what was probably the most complicated part of the whole thing, the zipper.  I always sew my invisible zippers in prior to sewing the seam.  It means I frequently have to ignore some of the sewing instructions but the zipper goes in so much easier and the final project looks just as good as if I'd followed the directions.  Nothing complicated here after all, the zip stitched in without a hitch.  After the zipper and waist band facing it is all down to the hand sewing.

Remember when I said all the horizontals were curves?  Yeah, hemline too.  That little fluttery bit on View B, all assembled, makes a full circle.  After much swearing and a trip to the store for a different color of grey that better matched the fabric, I did a very narrow rolled hem and ran it through the machine.

The facing on the waist band was hand stitched.  Really people, it's not a scary thing!  Try it, you'll like it.  The finish is so clean and tidy!

Will I make this again?  Absolutely.  I'm thinking view A this time, in this great embroidered denim that's been marinating in the stash for...um...years.  Probably best not to mention how many, because it's older than my first born.

Will I make any changes?  View A is longer, but other than dropping down a size, possibly 2, it's a pretty solid pattern.  This skirt has 5 1/2 inches of ease at the hips.  It's comfortable, without being figure hugging.  Sizing is a personal challenge with me.  I've been working at losing weight (don't call if you find it, okay?) and measuring is a constant challenge.  I measured twice and dropped a size after a measuring issue with a skirt I made last week.  I still need to go down at least once size on the next effort, but this one didn't require adjustments to make it fit.