Crescent Skirt No. 1

My first Crescent skirt! I say first, because there’s definitely more to come. I LOVE this pattern from Sewaholic.

It’s so fun to put together, and I learned a lot from following Tasia’s extremely comprehensive Sew-a-long, including an amazing zip insertion method which I will now use for everything I sew, forever. I am an expert at the process, having carefully sewed in the zip completely the wrong way round the first time. I didn’t notice until I was showing the beautiful ‘finished’ product to my boyfriend and had a sudden flash of realisation – the zipper pull belongs on the outside of the skirt. Oops. At least ripping it out and re-sewing has put it firmly in my head.

It’s made from a thin poly/cotton blend which is really a shirt weight, so I lined it with a white cotton poplin. You add a lot of structure to the skirt when sewing (interfacing, topstitching and twill tape) which combined with the lining, makes it feel lightweight but not flimsy. The waistband looks a bit wrinkly in this photo, but I had worn it all day, and think I just need to give it a bit of a press.

I top-stitched the waistband seams and the hem (which I made nearly 4 inches) with a light grey topstitching thread. It looks strangely yellow in this photo but it’s much more silvery in real life.

I pulled a super-human effort to get this skirt finished last weekend before visitors came to stay in my sewing room (some refer to it as our spare room). I really tried to finish everything off nicely, inspired by the sew-along: french seams, twill tape, making the gathers super-even, the lot.  I’m so proud of it and glad I didn’t take any short-cuts. I cut out the size 10 and I didn’t have to do any alterations, it fits perfectly, hooray.

As the sun decided to shine on London today I put it on to go fabric shopping with my sister. It’s also the second day of Self-Stitched-September! Yesterday I totally forgot it was September already, but luckily I was wearing my African print Sorbetto. Not sure if I’m going to make it to the end of the month but will give it a damn good try.

I’m going on holiday in about a week, so hopefully Virginia and North Carolina will be sunny enough for me to give this skirt a little bit of an airing before it gets put away for the winter (but I’m definitely making a winter version before then!).

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