Saturday 28 March 2015

An Everyday Skirt

This is the Everyday Skirt by Liesl & Co.  I saw it featured in Sew magazine recently and thought it would be a good wardrobe basic pattern.


Everyday Skirt - Liesl & Co


The pattern is a pdf dowload from Liesl & Co at Oliver and S. It's the first Liesl & Co pattern that I have made and I was very impressed with the simplicity of this pattern and the clear and thorough instructions.



It's a skirt suitable for beginners and it features front pockets, a gathered front, side panels and elasticated waist band at the back. The pdf pattern was easy to put together. I sized down to a small (US 4-6) as the skirt is designed to be fairly relaxed and this size fits perfectly. 



I used some material is from my stash. It's a cheap and cheerful cotton purchased from myfabrics.co.uk last year, but I can't tell you anything more about it.


Everyday Skirt - Liesl & Co


The waistband is cleverly constructed and finishes the inside of the skirt off very neatly.

Everyday Skirt - Liesl & Co

The skirt has front pockets and I really like this feature. It's my first time making pockets and I'm really pleased with how they went. 

Everyday Skirt - Liesl & Co

The back of the waist is gathered which means that it's a relaxed  and comfortable fit. It also means that it is fairly easy to fit as you just adjust to fit your waist.  I left mine fairly loose as the pattern is designed to be worn below the natural waistline.


Everyday Skirt - Liesl & Co

It's perhaps not the most elegant finish at the back  of the waistband. My elastic was slightly narrowed than the half inch elastic stated in the pattern as it was all I had to hand. 


Everyday Skirt - Liesl & Co

I'm also pleased with the gathering on the front as I sometimes find it hard to get the gathering evenly spaced. I utilized my daughter's John Lewis Mini sewing machine to do the gathering as I didn't want to have to change the thread on my machine.  Surprisingly I think using this machine was what made the difference as I seemed to be able to pull up the gathers better and they didn't drop out like usual.


Everyday Skirt - Liesl & Co

Overall, I didn't make any changes to the pattern except I did not make a wide hem as this was the only bit of the instructions that I had difficulty following. The pattern allows for a 2 inch hem and gives instructions on sewing a row of gathering stitches 1/2 inch from the hem's raw edge and then pulling in the gathering stitches so that you can ease in the extra fullness in the curved sections of the hem. I had couldn't get this to work at all, so  in the end, I trimmed about half an inch from the length of the skirt and turned under a regular 2cm hem.  I double stitched this also for a decorative effect.

I really like this skirt and can see me making it again. It's a great basic pattern and would look good in a range of different fabrics and prints. And it's got pockets!

As you can also see I also now have a dressmaking dummy. It was my birthday last week, I got vouchers to buy her. Lucky me! 


Dressmaker's dummy

Have you made the Everyday Skirt or do you have a favourite  basic skirt?

Catherine 

x

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting all these interesting informations about the Every Day Skirt here on your blog! I was debating wether to sew on for myself or not, and your's encouraged me to give it a try :)
    Bisous from France, Gisa

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    Replies
    1. Hi Gisa, glad you found it useful. It's a great skirt pattern, I must revisit it! Let me know how you get on with yours if you do decide to make it!

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    2. I did it!! And yes, the Every Day Skirt is a fabulous pattern. Mine is made of Kaffe Fassett's Shot Cotton in "prune". I wear it like the name suggests almost Every Day and even bought some Ikat Fabric for my second version. So: thanks again for the tip ;)

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