Crescent Skirt

I’ve been following Tasia’s Crescent sewalong and have finished my skirt and I think it looks great, like everyone else I really like the pockets but I also like the yoke round the waist.

Unfortunately there are a couple of issues (all of my making) , I made size 16 but it seems to be a bit too big, the waist is falling down onto a low waist (which is a problem I seem to have with lots of skirts, even when I measure the waist the real thing seems to be too big, must make more muslins and check out FFRP!) so next time it would have to be a 14 as the hip measurement is obviously not as critical.    Having measured the finished skirt waist measurement its coming up bigger than the patterns finished measurement, maybe I’ve not been as accurate with my seam allowances as I should have been….

The other imperfection is the zip… I’ve only put invisible zips in before (with hit or miss success)  and Tasia had a new technique to put the zip in.  I think part of the problem was that somehow I managed to miss the step where I sew the centre back seam below the zip!  Maybe being used to invisible zips I was working on the principle it would be done after the zip was inserted but obviously that doesn’t work with a regular zip.  Anyway I had the zip in there looking lovely and realised what I had done so I had to unpick the lower part of the zip to sew the seam down.  This bodge caused most of my zip problems I think.  Its not too bad but the bottom of the zip is not as neat as I would have liked, the topstitching around the zip is also not as neat as possible and I had to unpick and redo a section of this as the stitches were fouling the zip.  Anyhoo, I got the zip in, I decided not to topstitch or stitch-in-the-ditch around the facing as I couldn’t get a straight line well enough to pass muster (the fabric I used was a thickish black and white weave so its tricky to work out the edge) and I didn’t want to spoil it!  I have stitched this by hand. 

So that's the negatives, now for the positives, as I said I like the waistband, I love the pockets and the overall shape.

I also liked the zip/facing method of putting the zip in, had I done it properly it would have been a dream.  Like the Pendrell the pattern is brilliant with innovative design features and techniques.  Having the sewalong to follow is also a great boom as although the pattern directions are comprehensive Tasia covers alternative methods plus the posts are  so picture heavy there should be no excuse to get it wrong!!!!    I was able to use my overlocker a lot to finish the seams.  Next time I think I would be tempted to use a contrast on the pocket and a trim on the waistband (although I never tuck tops in so it might never get seen!)  and generally be a bit braver!   When I was shopping for fabric for this project I wanted a colourful linen but couldn’t find it so I might try it again.  

I’ll add some pictures to the Flickr group as well.