Pleated skirt, lucky last work wardrobe piece

I like to think that sewing allows me to indulge my creative side, but clearly my creative side is completely subject to my goal setting side.
Having mentally planned a 2 skirt work wardrobe for my daughter, I was unable to let it rest once she had finished work experience, and had to make the second skirt to soothe myself and allow me to move on to anther project. I dare say she will need some work clothes in the future!

My plan for this skirt was inspired by some very cute skirts that my older daughter had tried out in Cue, for which we had bought very expensive jacquard denim in which to try replicating the shape of the skirt. (I notice that there are no skirts with this pleating on the website anymore). I wanted to try this non-pattern sewing out prior to the denim.
My daughter and I auditioned 4 different bottom weight fabrics from the stockpile. I had about 5 yards of cotton twill in grey/green cross woven with deep charcol from Michael's Fabrics - This is from a $7 per yard  bundle (+ postage works out to about  another $5 per yard), but I suspect it is far more luxurious than the $40 per metre denim as the hand and drape is so beautiful.  The twill looks terrific with 3 of the 4 blouse fabrics, and the reverse side of the bolero jacket, leaving us both feeling very clever at our wardrobe building skills.
The skirt is simply constructed - in theory.
I took 2 x a full width of the twill (about 150cm) and sewed the short ends together  making an in inseam pocket on the way.



 I then cut the back piece in half,  inserted a lapped zipper and started draping.
The front and back are first pleated so that 1/2 of the front (or back) waist measurement is brought to meet at each centre front (or back). The remaining outer layer of fabric is then reverse box pleated to fit this measurement, with the pleats meeting at approximately half way between the side and the centre of the front and the back.



This makes the skirt extremely full, with double pleating, making the waist look tiny, particularly when it starts out as the waist of a fit 15 year old with an hourglass figure.
In practice, the tweaking of the pleat positions  for a flattering position and to sit smoothly over the  derriere and hips took several attemps and a lot of pins. In retrospect, using the full width of the fabric was a mistake, as the inner pleats are too large, extending past the side seams at the back, which made fitting more difficult, although we are happy with the skirt now that it is finished. For my daughter's dimensions, I should have used less width. (The Cue fabric must have been more narrow - as I saw the selvage in the seams during close inspection after my older daughter tried it on)

The waistband is a straight strip, interfaced, and buttoned at the centre back.



You can see here that I overlapped the back outer centre pleats due to the excess fabric.

The hem is machine blind stitch, and seems to show very clearly in the photographs where in real life it is not noticeable. Weird. The fabric has a very slight sheen, so maybe this is the reason?
Having rather a lot of the fabric left, I was considering a pair of trousers to fill out the wardrobe, but fortunately, have no burning urge to sew these in the immediate future. Phew!

 


Here is the full wardrobe I have sewn for my daughter - she has a RTW black straight skirt to pad this out.

Here is the 5 piece wardrobe I am entering in the Pattern Review mini wardrobe challenge.

Vogue V8812 bolero, more work wardrobe

Not so long ago, an astute blogger wrote that although it is mostly pretty dresses that draw her to vintage patterns, often there are other garments included with a dress pattern, and that we should not ignore the boleros/capes/little jackets I wish I could remember where I read this, because I would like to thank her for reminding me to look twice at my patterns.

 

 You may remember that I recently used this pattern, Vogue V8812, as a base for a dress for my older daughter.

Due to my recent use pattern storage system (lying at the back of my sewing table), this pattern was in view whilst I was trying to:

 A)Work out a "key piece" so that my daughter's work wardrobe would fit in the pattern review mini wardrobe requirements, - my late start to this work wardrobe has the silver lining of making my time frame eligible for the contest.

B)Use the quite inadequate- for-a -garment remnants of my lovely grey Viyella. This was a gift to me from  Marji at Stichers Guild (now off sailing with a broken blog link), and I wanted to use every bit.

 The pieces were of the horrid size where there is too much to call it a scrap, but too little for an adult garment. I did not quite have enough fabric to make the bolero according to the pattern. With piecing, and a slightly shorter sleeve, I had the outer sections, but with no stretch of the imagination nor fabric could I manage the facing in the Viyella.

 I decided to fully line the bolero instead, and used one of the blouse fabrics, as in a traditional woman's suit jacket. 

 

To make things more difficult interesting, I made the bolero reversible.  

There were no fitting changes from a straight size 8, other than not including the shoulder pads, which is effectively a square shoulder adjustment. The bolero did not require a FBA, it is loose at the front.

  

The bolero has shaping darts at the back, and sits very nicely, without slipping off the neck and shoulders during wear.

  

 My daughter told me that she feels like an air hostess in this suit outfit, so I was a bit worried, that she wouldn't wear the bolero, but then she said "It is very 60's, cool" and the next day wore the black blouse and the bolero with her jeans to go to an after school lecture, where her friends admired her outfit, so the garments are a sucess outside of work too.

Burda style 4-2012-118 skirt for work

Although my daughter started her work week with a RTW black skirt, the plan was to make her two more skirts to wear with her blouses. I finished one of them in time for day 2 of work experience, but the other one does not exist.

I will have to return my sewing halo.

  

You have seen this a few times already ;). In fact I am pretty sure that I have made several versions of an identical skirt  pattern from a Burda issue a year or so earlier, however, this one was traced in a size 36 from Burda Style 04-2010-118, as for some reason not unrelated to chocolate consumption I do not trace out a size 36 for myself.

My daughter loves the high waist on this one, but  I have a post construction urge to somehow squeeze some boning in the upper side seams. I used a great crisp interfacing, but it is not quite sufficient by lunchtime.


The adjustments to the skirt pattern were minor. I added a lining, using the outer pieces, and did my fitting from the lining. Unfortunately this led to a slightly overfitted waist, as I had somehow forgotten that cotton batiste (lining) has less bulk than 2 layers of Viyella (skirt fabric, facing)  and a layer of interfacing. Fortunately I had started to bind the seams with wide strips of bias cut cotton quilting fabric and was able to use most of the seam allowance to correct my fitting error. I then hand stitched the bias strips to the lining and mitred the corners at the back walking slit.

This fancy finish left me feeling rather smug, but the hem cured that nicely. I sewed it by hand whilst watching television and somehow made it crooked, so had to re do it in the morning, which is not a good idea, especially before the second cup of tea. It must have been payback for the smugness. Sewing does that.

I have recovered from this now, but it may be why the second skirt is still in the pipeline.

McCall's M5522 work blouse #4

I hope you weren't breathing a sigh of relief when you saw those chair covers.
 I am only part way through the work wardrobe, although the "worker" returns to school tomorrow. Photos lag behind sewing in this house.
 Work blouse mumber 4 is a repeat of McCall's M5522, but due to the variety of design options offerred in the pattern it looks quite different, which is a rather useful trait in a pattern.

  The fabric this time is a shirting cotton from Ewan Gardam Fabric in Brisbane. As the print is much less business-like than that used previously, I kept the structure of the blouse more conventional than the earlier be-ruffled and extra puffy sleeve version.

This time I made version D, which has a collar and no front ruffles. I shortened the sleeves and added a small tuck above the hem for shaping as this is a sleeve detail I like. I used super crisp  fusible shirting interfacing from Fashion sewing supplies.in the collar, stand and front placket.

  

Wearing the blouse tucked in also makes it look different, and unfortunately means that you cannot see the cute peplum detail.

  

 I may have breathed my own sigh of relief at the thought of the return of the school uniform on Monday.

Burda Stye 10-10-118 again, office junior work mini wardrobe

I have a maternal halo this week. Here is blouse #3 for my daughter's mini work wardrobe.

Burda World of Fashion 10-10-118

This blouse is a second version of the Burda blouse I made her for day 1, much quicker as all the fitting adjustments had been completed already. This time I have actually used the neck detail as set out by Burda, and it is worth the fabric hogging, in my opinion. The neck is bound with a bias strip, fastened with a small button and loop, and a bias cut scarf is then attached to the neckline. In Burda, this blouse is made from a wool tweed, and the bias scarf is fringed at the ends and the long sides are unfinished. As my daughter's blouse is made from cotton shirting (woven plaid in black,grey and white, so both sides look good) from Michael's Fabrics, I have finished the edges of the scarf with a rolled hem. The scarf is a single layer, and drapes beautifully.
 
Photographs are again taken during the lunch break, and the cotton is standing up pretty well to a half day at work.
 
Today, she wore the blouse again ( I think it is her favourite), but untucked, over her black RTW (Christmas present from Nanna) skirt.
These are after work photos, with the shoes off and hair out, but I think you can see the idea of the second outfit from this blouse with a different look.

Burda 10-10-118 Work Blouse

My younger daughter is having a week of work experience at a law firm. Naturally this raised visions of a completely new wardrobe, as mostly she wears her school uniform, or the ubiquitous jeans and t shirt. Note I am not saying whether these visions belonged to me or my daughter ;)

 Despite some joint Burda perusal, which was rather fun and gave us thoughts of fancy shirts with collar stands and funky details, and some serious mutual pattern tracing and cutting out, this blouse was the only thing I finished before she started work this morning. This may have something to do with hosting a 10 year old birthday party this past weekend and not considering that this might cut into my sewing time slightly. 10 year olds are a lot of fun but slightly exhausting en mass.
 Could anything be more simple? Unfortunately it was not as simple as it looks. There is a FBA, square shoulder adjustment,waist shaping and severe fabric pinching in this little top. I added a side dart for the FBA instead of adding it to the gathers at the neck where the rest of the bust shaping lives.

Burda World of Fashion 10-10-118

 You can see from the line drawing that there is supposed to be an attached scarf (on the bias) and much longer sleeves with a cuff. That is why Burda expected me to have over 2 metres of fabric. I squeezed the top from a cotton shirting remnant of about 60 cm and scraps. Scaling down to a size 34 probably helped with this, but the main thing that reduced the fabric consumption was making the bias binding for the neck finishing extra long and turning it into the neck fastening bow instead of the fabric hogging bias scarf (which I rather fancy).

 When the top was finished, I thought it looked pretty dull on the hanger, but on the recipient, I think it is quite cute for an office junior.

  

It was nicely quick to sew once the fitting and fabric squeezing was over, and she might even get another one before she runs out of clean shirts.......