Short Stuff

And now for something completely different.  It's contemporary (well, sort of), and it's short.  These descriptors are not usually ones I use in reference to my wardrobe.

But actually, the second of those things is the reason I was able to get a fourth item out of this brocade fabric.  I have a pencil skirt, a full skirt, and a cropped jacket, and now this skirt.

Here is another example of me using a much longer zipper than is necessary.  But it's easy to shorten, and it means I always have the length if it's needed.  And it was the only black invisible zipper on hand, so that's what I used.  Don't use your good sewing shears for this purpose, use those craft scissors instead to cut through the plastic coils.

If you go this route, I highly recommend covering the cut end since cut zipper coils can be sharp.  It also looks a whole lot nicer than a ragged cut end.

This brocade fabric likes to fray, so binding the seams was a no brainer.

This is the length of the skirt per the pattern, if you can believe it.  It's SHORT!  Actually, it would be even shorter if I took up the recommended 2" hem.  I would have lengthened the pieces, however, I didn't have the fabric.  In order to get as much coverage as possible, I drafted a facing and used a 3/8" seamline.  Taking turn of cloth into account, that gave me an extra 1.5" in length.

I decided to forego the lining since I did not believe that this fabric would cling to a pair of tights.  Also, a bemgerg rayon would drape completely differently than the skirt, and I decided it wasn't worth it in the end.

And, of course, I added a ribbon hanger at each side seam along the waistband.

I am planning on pairing this with an oversized sweater that I recently knit.

It was a very quick project using what I had on hand, which always feels good.  And I finally made the incredibly popular Vogue 1247!  It's a great skirt, although it's really, really short (by my standards, at least).  I could see adding another version to my wardrobe, although next time I hope that I have a little bit more fabric to pull that hemline down another inch or so!