Pattern: Self- "drafted" (I use that term very lightly)
Fabric: Rayon Challis - Aztec Print (fabric.com)





Well friends, I made up a skirt! This may be one of the first times I have made a successful garment without any kind of pattern :) Granted, the fabric has enough pattern to make your head spin if you look at it too long (which I did...)


This skirt was made for the August sewcialbee challenge! If you haven't gotten in on the sewcialbee, here's the gist:

Anyone who feels so inclined may join the challenge. You have a 48 hour window in which you cannot devote MORE than seven hours of time to sewing your garment. The theme is posted at the beginning of the 48 hours. At the end of the time, you must have finished your garment and posted pics in the flickr pool! Very fun!

This month's challenge theme was "inspired by food" and so I decided to make a skirt out of this crazy "flavor-ful" fabric!




I didn't have any patterns on hand that fit what I had pictured, so I kind of made up my own! I started with the base waistband pattern from another skirt, but altered it so much to fit my curves that I think I'll call it my own ;) Other design features include:

- Gathered skirt
- Side panels with contrasting stripes
- Interfaced/Lined waistband
- Center back zipper
- Slightly dipped back hem


My only regret is that I didn't think to add POCKETS until after the fact! D'oh!

It took a lot of effort to line up the patterns on each skirt piece just like I wanted, but I'm very happy with the result! I wanted to create a "panel" effect from the horizontal and vertical stripes, similar to this Anthropologie skirt (after seeing the catalog picture, I was shocked to see the stripe actually goes down the center front!)

I also found out the hard way that the print of the fabric did not quite match the grain, after using the "tear-method" for one of my panels and finding it quite crooked and too short, I sneakily added another strip of fabric to the back skirt panel:

Do you see it?! The original panel ends at the flowers :)
I finished the skirt well within the time frame of the sewcialbee challenge - once I figured out what I was doing, it was a quick make! I can definitely see myself making this skirt again sometime :)

How about you? Did you participate in the sewcialbee?? Have you ever made up a pattern on the fly???

And one more question for all you photographers/editors out there:

My first set of pics are super over-exposed (SEE BELOW), but they had the best shots of the skirt - is there any good way to edit these, or am I stuck with the touched-by-an-angel glow? Lol ;)

It's just all that sunshine - like the beast at the end of Beauty and the Beast - lol :)