Halloween Swirl

 Looks like it's been about six years since I last sewed any bias swirl skirts (for humans--doll-size bias swirl skirts were three years ago.)  My introduction to the concept of a bias swirl skirt was from Simplicity 6261 (1973), which I adopted from Mom's pattern stash back in the 1990s

In the intervening years, I'd forgotten that the pattern piece I'd cobbled together had been altered from the 6261 pattern.  But it still worked

Since I am still waist-ambivalent, I decided to go ahead and make this with a drawstring waist

 

 using the buttonholer to make two finished holes on either side of the center front, a well as tack through all layers at the waistband center back seam to keep the drawstring from escaping.

All skirt seam allowances got serged after being sewn, which led to the lower edges being serged with each seam, due to the way things flow into each other.  And of course I edge stitched all the swirls.

And then I made a mess of the hem--oh, it looks OK from the outside

...but, the inside?  It's our secret.

The waistband up there was made with my current favorite band technique of "first, press it in half, then one edge under; sew it, flat, with right side of band to wrong side of garment, leaving a few inches unsewn at each end; sew garment seam, then sew the band seam, making it no longer flat; finish sewing band to garment; flip pressed edge of band to outside, encasing seam allowance, then edge stitch band on the outside, not worrying about where the stitches land on the inside because who's gonna see?"

This project happened because I had wanted to mix Halloween prints with not-Halloween prints again, like I did with the patchwork Halloween bomber jacket. Three of these fabrics were thrifted, and the pumpkin print was a JoAnn purchase several years ago--actually, checking my files, it was in 2015.  Pure coincidence that that was the lat time I'd made a bias swirl skirt, too.

The vaguely patchwork print fabric was thrifted in 2018, the bats in 2017.  I can't find a photo of when I bought the black and green print, but I will show you the selvedge

I initially thought it was a wax print, due to how similar the front and back look, but I'm now pretty sure that's a textile company from India, even though the internet has nothing helpful to say.

I started with coordinating just the patchwork(ish) print and the bats, which, with their little green eyes, worked well.  I had a moment of wanting to run to JoAnn and buy a solid in as close to the patchwork(ish) purple as possible, but I let that impulse pass and turned back to the stash.  I initially didn't want to use the pumpkin print, because I wanted to ~save~ it, but, honestly, my purple options aren't very great. (I like purple.  A lot.  And apparently a lot of people do, so I seldom see strongly purple fabrics in thrift stores.)  So, once I decided to use the pumpkin print, I knew I wanted to use one more print with more emphasis on green.  At this point, I had given up on finding the same green, since the purple wasn't at all the same, and I thought this would work well (especially since there's a bit of orange in it), giving me one very dark print, one very pale print, and two medium tones to put between them.

I do firmly still stand by If You Sew It Together, It Goes Together, but it's also fun to put a little more thought into mixing prints sometimes.

Time for the back view, which is very much like the front view

Bonus: Same Assistant Chip from five years ago