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

Tiny Dolly Swirly Skirty

It only took me a few iterations to get the swirl just right--lots of tutorials around for making hugely twirly flouncy swirl skirts, but not so much for this more restrained A-line shape.

 That means this version is all about the print mixing, which...I've mentioned I love, yes?  Because you can put a lot of thought into it or you can grab stuff completely randomly and either way it's fine, because I firmly believe "If you sew it together, it goes together."  Humans are so good at finding patterns that our brains will make connections anyway...

(and the next Human Size sewing project is being planned.)

Swirl Skirt Activate!

Oh so serious

Cat makes it better

Cat always makes it better

Swirl Skirt, Final Form

Have I mentioned that I'm good at making things more complicated than they need to be?  Because I'm good at making things more complicated than they need to be.

The first overcomplication with this patchwork bias swirl skirt project was probably, technically, deciding to make it patchwork.  The next overcomplication ended up being deciding that the bias swirl skirt pattern I already had wouldn't do, because it was for too-small a size and because I wanted the swirls more swirly, so I messed around with modification, eventually getting a nice swirl and realizing that I didn't need to make the pattern width wider--just make more of them instead.  So I decided to make a (wearable) muslin!  I have a history of just jumping right in, so the "no, actually, you really should do this with every new pattern" step of muslin making seemed like another overcomplication...until it was being finished and I remembered why I dislike hemming scalloped hems, so I made modifications and another wearable muslin and ended up with a great pattern.

Which I didn't use after all.

I went back to the original Simplicity 6261 pattern, assembling a first panel (patchwork, remember) with a tweaked hemline, and proceeded to use that pattern piece to as a guide for assembling and cutting the rest of the patchwork panels.  I do still prefer the look of the more extreme swirl, but I thought I would be more likely to run out of the prints I'd chosen for the patchwork if I needed to assemble panels that wide.  Enh, well, turns out that probably wouldn't've been a problem, especially since I used very little of the "I have several yards of this print and I'll probably have to use it when I've run out of all of the smaller pieces" cloth.  (This may be a recurring issue with me and unplanned patchwork.)

And all of the pieced panels went together surprisingly quickly and all of the panels got assembled surprisingly quickly and the waistband went on with very little fuss and then I remembered that my legs are much shorter than pattern illustration legs and the skirt was much longer than I wanted.  "No problem," I thought, "I'll just make an extra deep blind hem."  So I started that, and I know deep blind hems can be made on flared skirts, but I always feel like I'm just making a huge mess when I try, so that idea got nixed.

Sh...should I cut it?  Cut off all that patchwork work?  Well...if I wanted it significantly shorter, then, yes.  So I measured 18" down from the waistband all around, marking with a chalk pencil, then running a line of stitching on either side of that marked line and cutting between those (so the stitching would hold the patchwork seams together after they were cut.)  I then cut that cut-off piece in half along its length, cut it so it was no longer a loop, then sewed one end of one half to the end of the other half and proceeded with making a ruffle.  First I finished what would be the hem edge, then ran the whole thing through the beloved ruffler foot contraption--I made a good guess on where to set the ruffler control screw, and ended up with the ruffled strip being about 8 inches longer than needed, which, if you have experience with these things, you know that "a little longer" is way better than "a little short."  I sewed the ruffle to the hem, leaving a bit unsewn at the beginning so that, when it got all the way back around, I could sew a seam and make it look like I was more precise than I am.  (That...that might be a good summary of my approach to sewing in general...)  Then serged the seam allowance, pressed that hem, and...done?

Was it worth the overcomplicated effort?  I'm not sure yet.  I have no idea if my vague original idea of "patchwork loli garden witch style" is even a do-able thing...

Oh, yeah, the cloth!  It's a fun mix of yardage I thrifted, some pieces that were given to me (thanks again!), a clearance print, and that rarest thing, a print I acquired intentionally (the brick print, which I bought to use for doll diorama backdrops, once upon a time.)  I do love mixing things that were never intended to go together...

Swirlificity

Made some progress on assembling another swirl skirt today--the big thing was starting with the decision not to use the pattern piece I worked out before, since that seemed like it would start to use more cloth than I had chosen for the project.  (In retrospect, nah, it would've been good.)

Chip was very cat about it.

Swirl Skirt In Action

I wore one of the swirl skirts the other day

I'm impressed that I managed to finagle things just right so that the lines of the plaid are nice'n'flat in spinny/fully extended mode.

I'm probably going to sew a button-up shirt for the kiddo next, because I have a print (that he picked out...um...two years ago) that will work with blue thread that's already in the machine.

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...