This skirt was stitched together back in 2022, but I only got around to wearing and taking photos last year, and here we are, two years later, finally getting around to talking about the project on the blog. I'm not even sure that this garment made it on my Instagram account.
I really loved making multiple versions of Vogue 8685, which is a dress pattern made for a stable knit. I made a polka dot version, a solid rayon ponte version, and made a knee length ponte version in solid black (which also never made it to the blog), and decided that it would make a lovely skirt.
Well, I wasn't sure that I wanted a knit skirt in my wardrobe, or that I would even find a knit fabric that I wanted to make into a skirt. But I did have plenty of wool yardage. So I decided to see if the design would work in a woven.
Spoiler alert . . . it did. Now, I did add a bit of extra width to the hips since my wool coating doesn't have the same amount of stretch as a ponte knit. That alteration worked great.
The wool is not lightweight at all, so an invisible zipper was out of the question. I ended up using a regular zipper with a lapped application.
It's definitely a bit bulky, but I think this was the best choice for the fabric.
As with most of my waistbands, I added a bit of plastic boning to keep the wide band from collapsing.
It only takes a bit more time/effort, and it really makes a difference that an interfacing cannot accomplish on its own.
The skirt itself is not lined, but to finish the raw edges of the wool I cut out duplicates of the yoke in a cotton that I had on hand to serve as a partial lining.
And a pair of ribbon hangers is something I always like to add to the waist seam because I hate the marks that hanger clips leave.
This particular wool does not fray very much at all, but I still wanted to have a clean finish, and I happened to have a very complimentary colored seam binding on hand, so I wrapped all remaining raw edges with it.
Because this fabric was extra wide (I think it was somewhere around 64"!) I was able to make the skirt nice and long, and give myself a generous hem for a flared shape.
And since there was a nice seam binding finish at the hem, I decided to catch-stitch the edge.
This is probably one of my most used patterns. While it is technically a modern style, it does have very classic lines, but is slightly more interesting than a standard skirt.
And I don't think I will ever be able to say no to adding another wool skirt option to my closet!
