Experimental Swirl

I mentioned in the last post that I had an idea for a bias swirl skirt, but needed to experiment with the pattern piece before I committed the Chosen Cloth to it.

The first thing that needed experimentation was the pattern itself, because this is the bias swirl skirt pattern I actually already had

 and at no time in recorded history have I had (or do I ever plan to have) 34½" hips, so that needed to be rectified.  Plus, the shape of this skirt-as-sewn is an A-line, and I wanted something significantly fuller.  PLUS plus, I wanted the swirl shapes to be more extreme.

So, after determining that the three skirt swirl pattern pieces as given were actually identical (my guess is that it was repeated three times to help people figure out if they had enough fabric or not...), I traced off one and started working with extending the swoosh.  I also tried widening the piece, so it would create something that actually fit  over my hips, but I eventually realized that the overall enlargening could be accomplished by simply cutting more than the original six panels, which would also add to the fullness and end up with a gathered waist instead of a fitted waistband.

On to the weird prints for the first experiment skirt...

I started with eight panels, then freaked out that maybe that wouldn't be large enough, so added two more, which ended up making the waist opening about 52" around.

And it is very full!

...although not quite a full circle...

I decided on a drawstring waist--and therefore able to fit a range of sizes--because there is a vague thought that this might end up as a giveaway o'er on Tumblr, if there's enough interest. But I'm only going to mention that possibility here and see if anyone says anything over there.  Nyah.

Not that it's a great skirt--beyond the possibly odd print combination (which I do like), the hem ended up being scalloped, which...drastically bias curved hems are not something I deal well with, and this one is...ah...well, when it's thoroughly ironed, it behaves fine.

So that meant the next iteration of the experiment would be to see if I could figure out how to alter the pattern piece so the hem wouldn't be scalloped.  After messing around a bit, I was ready to try a second swirl skirt.

Non-scalloped hem success!  I was even able to fold it up about an inch and a half and do a blind stitch.  (And it really is even , despite the way that rose print panel is hanging in the photo.)

See?

This one is made from eight panels, partly because I learned from the first try that...uh...eight is enough (I'm old enough to cringe at that) and partly because my original idea for using a few certain other prints (that had been used in the first skirt)  didn't work because I didn't have enough of them left to make a full panel without piecing.  I mean, yeah, I still took the time to piece those panels, before eventually deciding...nah.  And the waist has elastic, since this skirt is definitely for me.

(I just realized, both skirts are made from one 'purchased at that Hancock that went out of business' print plus a bunch of thrifted fabrics...)

I think the pattern is ready for the stack of prints that triggered the original idea for this, but first I want to sew something to use the bright blue thread that's still in my machine from making these skirts.  (I'm not the only person who sometimes chooses projects based on resistance to changing a bobbin, am I?)