Coral Kettle Cloth

Years ago,  I thrifted several yards of an odd fabric in a steely blue gray, and then a bit later thrifted more of it in an equally odd maybe-coral color.  I used a lot of the blue a few years ago in a quilt (not just patchwork, but an actual quilt!), and then for a few other things, and during that time I found out the fabric was a cotton rayon blend called kettle cloth. 

I had seen kettle cloth listed in the suggested fabrics of some vintage patterns, but I hadn't known anything else about kettle cloth.  I don't even remember how I discovered that this particular fabric is kettle cloth.  And as soon as I identified it as kettle cloth, I also learned that it's no longer made, and hasn't been for a while.

Which is a little odd to think about!

But so much of my fabric is vintage, made ages ago and never again, that it's not out of place in my fabric stash.

So, I grabbed McCall's 7981 and the not-exactly-coral kettle cloth and cut out the longest A-line view.

Then I made some weird decisions and had to let it simmer for a few days before I convinced myself they were worth correcting.

When I looked at the Pattern Review entries for this pattern, I noticed complaints about the idea that it would be a fast and easy skirt if not for all. those. buttons.  Enh, well, I have a buttonholer, so it's not that bad.

I went with eight buttons instead of the recommended seven, because I happened to have eight of the button style I decided to use, and I have a Simflex gauge so it's pretty easy to mark new buttonhole placement.

When I cut the pieces, I had to take over the kitchen table, because my usual ironing board cardboard working surface was way too narrow--the pieces for the long A-line version have to be cut one at a time from unfolded fabric--and I really did not feel like clambering around on the floor.

I ignored direction and fabric face when cutting things, but that's not a problem with kettle cloth (and there were few enough pieces involved that the risk of accidentally sewing things together backwards was minimized.)  I still have a decent amount of this fabric left.

The problems I did have were based entirely on decisions I made, and they all would have shown up here, if I hadn't picked out so many stitches and did things again.

One bad decision was the idea that the top stitching had to go to the back, even though an in-seam pocket (especially with all the seam allowances serged together) means all the seam allowances go to the front. I strategically clipped the seam allowance to let it be pressed, mostly, to the back, top stitched, and finished the skirt.  It looked...odd.

To fix it, I picked out all of the top stitching on both side seams, and also a few inches of waist band stitching on either side (helpful for changing the side seam direction, vital to fixing the other problem I made.)

I did not pick out any hem stitching, instead choosing to clip the seam allowance, tack the new ends of the serging, and accept visible back stitching. 

There is now a tiny bit of raw edge at the clip, but it's cut on the bias and very very small, so I'm not worried about fraying.

I had to free the top of the pocket bags to be able to fold them out of the way while doing the replacement top stitching, yes, but, more importantly, I had to free them to fix the other mistake: the tops of the pocket bags hadn't aligned with the top edge of the skirt front pieces, and, instead of leaving them where they wanted to be and or trimming them, I folded them down a bit so the edges aligned.  This, of course, forced the pockets to hang weirdly--I knew it would, but I didn't realize how much it would make the front of the skirt hand weirdly, too.

So I picked out the top stitching from the side seams to the center fronts, and got rid of the construction stitching holding the pocket bag tops.  I then flattened the bags carefully and pinned the tops where they wanted to be and then trimmed off the corners that stuck out too far before re-sewing the 5/8" seams attaching the waistband to the skirt and holding the tops of the pockets.

I then re-sewed the rows of top stitching, from behind the side seams to the front opening.  The back tacked areas aren't too overt.

The center back seam was fine and needed no extra work (of course, the pattern doesn't call for any top stitching, so this is all on me.)

I thought of lining this, because I default to lining every skirt I make anymore, but I generally make short skirts, and I wasn't sure if I'd like this enough to want to use that much lining fabric.

I am currently wearing it, with another (thrifted) long skirt under it, both for warmth and to sort of act as a slip and keep this skirt from sticking to my (heavy, home made) tights.  I may consider making an actual long slip, because I do think I might make more of this skirt in this length, and making a single separate slip, instead of lining every one, is more efficient use of fabric, and will allow for a lighter layer experience of wearing the skirt(s) with no lining or slips over bare legs in summer. (but I'll probably mostly make the lined 3"-shorter-than-the-short-view versions)