Yes, I’m spoiling you today with pictures of two finished projects. Please excuse my hair – it’s Sunday night…

Here is my Cheap & Cheerful skirt which cost me a grand total of $2.50. It would have cost $1 if the zipper had not broken when pulling apart the old skirt.

Cheap & Cheerful Skirt, Simplicity 2451

This skirt was made with Simplicity 2451, view D, size 8. It’s a tiny bit baggy over my booty but the fabric is so busy you can’t tell. The fabric has no give in it so I think it’s best with some booty-wigglin’ room. I’m really chuffed with this skirt. I love the fabric, I love the pattern and I am sure that ELH (ever lovin’ husband) loves the price!

More pictures of Cheap & Cheerful on flickr. I know I look too thin in some. I haven’t exercised in…. errr…. months. So what happened? I gave up bread a few months ago (it seems to give me ulcers) and that’s the result! Apparently I’m healthier this size?! At least I have no more ulcers. First time in seven years!

RESCUED

This afternoon I finished off a second Vogue 1247 skirt. I don’t love it as much as my Tardis skirt made from the same pattern but it’s OK. My choice of fabric made this skirt hard work.

I found the fabric on the upholstery fabric clearance table at Spotlight and loved the look of it. Hopefully no-one will mistake me for a sofa or dinner chair. It’s a black and silver with a very small textured check pattern.

I almost gave up on it. Then I pulled it out again and decided not to give up. This happened because we have an ‘upstairs-downstairs’ house. Bedrooms upstairs and living downstairs. My sewing room is between the two girls’ rooms – I can’t sew once they are in bed however I have discovered they go to sleep a lot faster if I stay in the sewing room as they know that they can’t run between rooms and make mischief. So I make the grand sacrifice most nights and sit in the sewing room, gazing at patterns, pondering the next project and sometimes unpicking a disaster! It also gives me time to unwind and relax doing one of my favourite things – and I tend to do some of the things that seem more tedious when the machine is running and the iron is on. Everyone wins.

What went wrong with this project? The invisible zipper did not work. It went in fine but then refused to budge past the yoke seam, the fabric was just too chunky at the yoke seam area for the zipper to squeeze past. Unpicking the zipper was very difficult as the weave of the fabric meant that my thread was all but invisible. I’m proud to say I did not swear… I think I was concentrating too hard trying not to wreck the fabric.

I gave up on an invisible zipper and put in a normal dress zip. It’s not as nice as an invisible zipper but it looks just fine.

The Hong Kong finish was more difficult than it was for Tardis. I should have purchased wider bias binding as the standard width was a little narrow for the thickness of the fabric. Yes, yes I could have made bias biding but crikey I work five days a week! And this skirt needed the Hong Kong finish as it re-defines the term ‘fraying’, it was shedding threads worse than a Persian cat sheds hair in the middle of summer in Alice Springs, Australia. (please note I never exaggerate. Ever.).

I’m not mad about this skirt. I’m not a big fan of the thickness of the seams or how the hem sits (also due to the thickness of the fabric). It doesn’t press well due to the ‘nature’ of the fabric (which I would call ‘uncompromising’). I do like the texture and the weave of the fabric, so it’s a trade-off between its good points and its bad ones. It’s quirky and I like something a little off-beat to pair with a corporate jacket. Plus I can stuff my phone and work tags into the pockets and no-one will be the wiser!

I’ve called this one Rescued. Tardis is still my favourite version of this pattern, I love it to pieces and wear it to death! At least this skirt has got me out of my ‘blue rut’ – I noticed all my patterns reviews have been made in blue fabric!!

Vogue 1247 – Rescued

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