Unselfish sewing

No posts for weeks and then two come along at once!

This is a skirt which I made for my mother in November last year.

Abstract print wool skirt

The fabric is lovely, it's wool which she bought in Marche St Pierre in Paris a few years ago, so I had to be careful with it as there was no chance of getting any more!  Sewing with wool is definitely outside my comfort zone, I'm happy making cotton dresses, but this was not as easy to sew with and frayed easily.  However, I love the colours and fortunately there was no need to worry about pattern matching the print, other than making sure I cut all the pieces out the same way up.

I used Simplicity 3688 for the first time, I will be sewing a skirt for myself from this and also possibly the trousers at some point.  I didn't really follow the instructions because I used an invisible zip, and also, because time was short, I just put poppers on the waistband as a temporary measure until I have the time to work out how to use the buttonhole feature on my sewing machine.

I initially made a toile out of navy lawn (white lawn dyed in the machine with dylon) to check the fit, which fortunately was fine.  I unpicked the waistband from this and used the skirt pieces as a lining.

My mother really likes this, and I must get round to finishing it off properly with a button and buttonhole on the waistband.