A few months ago, I purchased 2m of this pretty viscose fabric which I made into a cowl neck dress. I'm so pleased with how that dress turned out, and I think a large part of its success can be attributed to the fabric. Like with most sewing projects, I had an small amount of fabric leftover that didn't look like it could be used for much, but I didn't want to waste it. Spurred on by the UK's recent heatwave, I decided to try and use whatever I could to make a skirt. One of the nice things about sewing with leftover fabric is that it doesn't matter whether or not the project works out - if would have become nothing had I not tried to make something from it.
Whilst I didn't need all of the fabric to make this dress, the Sicily Slip Dress pattern is cut on the bais so the pattern pieces can't be manoevered in a way that would economise on fabric use. I had two akwardly shaped pieces of fabric to work with, which was just enough to cut a skirt back and front from. The seam allowances are pretty miniscule in places (fortunately hidden by the french seams) and I had to include the selfrage, but it worked! I would have liked to have cut the fabric on the bias to make the skirt hang as well as the dress, but I had so little fabric that I had to ignore the pattern grain altogether. However, because this is a viscose fabric the skirt still has a nice drape to it.
I've made two midi skirts before, a green one and an orange one, both of which I've been wearing a lot this summer. For this skirt, I wanted to try a slightly different style - lower waist, no split, just below the knee length. To achieve this, I decided to use the bottom half of the Sicily Slip Dress pattern. The pattern has notches to indicate the waist, making it easy to know where to fold the pattern in order to turn it into a skirt. Because there are literally two pattern pieces, it was ridiculously quick to sew - it took me a morning to sew the whole thing, including cutting the fabric.
Having looked at this style of ready to wear skirt, I decided to use a narrow elastic to finish it at the waist. I attached the elastic using a zig-zag stitch, folded it over twice to hide any raw edges, and then used a zig-zag stitch again to secure it. I usually obsesss over a neat finish without visible stitches but I actually think that this was the right way to sew the waist of this particular style of skirt.
I'm so thrilled with how this skirt looks - from leftover fabric and a few hours of sewing. It's definitely the kind of style that I want to wear at the moment, and having made it I know I'll be able to use this pattern again. Whilst I love the dress too it's definitlely smarter, and I know that this skirt will be a great everyday item of clothing to wear throughout the summer.
