The summer Vogues came out last week and my order arrived a few days ago (thanks to the BMV sale). One of the patterns I purchased was this AKO ensemble. I just love this skirt, especially the giant draped pockets and the shirt cuffs on the ends of the giant bow. As designed, it would look best on the tiny waisted, but I made a few modifications so that it would work for me. Unfortunately, I could not see a feasible way to preserve the shirt cuff ties for my version, but that's ok.
Materials:
- Dark Navy Vera Wang Triacetate/Cupro Rayon Crepe from FabricMart. This fabric is basically a rayon crepe. It ravels like crazy and is extremely slippery but has a very nice drape, which is what I wanted for the pockets. It is such a dark navy that I thought it was black until well into the project. It came out nicely after throwing it into the washer and dryer. I used self fabric for the lining.
- 1.5" waistband elastic from Pamela's Patterns.
Alterations and Modifications:
- I eliminated the waist yoke with the ties.
- I eliminated the zipper and used an elastic waistband.
- You'll notice that the skirt gathers into the yoke. I did not want the skirt to be overly gathered at the waist. I bought the pattern in the multi-size grouping of 12-18. After measuring the skirt, I decided to cut out the size 12. The size 18 was approx 74" at the top (where it is supposed to be gathered into the yoke) and the size 12 was approx 62". Even that was too large, so I removed 5" from the front and 5" from the back pieces, so the resulting skirt was approx 42" at the top.
- I cut the CF on the fold.
- The skirt does need a lining, especially to support the heavy pockets, but I did not use the lining pattern pieces that were provided. I ripped a rectangle of self fabric to fit the skirt opening and a bit shorter than the skirt. I sewed/serged the side seam and inserted it into the skirt opening.
- I sewed this skirt on a conventional machine, but made heavy use of the serger to deal with the raveling.
I like this skirt! A lot! I do wish it were a couple inches longer. The fabric is great, in terms of drape, as annoying it was to sew. But I still don't see where the shirt cuffs could have been added... I guess I need to think harder. :)
Flying Squirrel Pose
