Apr 2026 - wrap skirt
This was a skirt based on the Jill Skirt pattern. I hesitated for a long time about paying $18 for a skirt pattern. Many YouTube videos will try to teach you how to do this but in the end I was too suspicious - the easy ones looked a little too easy, and the difficult ones went through drafting your own pattern (probably beyond my abilities) with curved rulers that look like they were created by a warlock (don't have access to a warlock). Hindsight has not solved the question of whether it was a good idea to buy the pattern but now it's
This was a novel project for me in a few respects:
Pattern Printing and Cutting
I bought the PDF version rather than paper, and so my first step was to learn why I should never do that again: I don't have a printer so I had to print via my local library (charming but more expensive than just ordering the paper), and taping together all of the pages, particularly with large pattern pieces like this, is just a bunch of needless opportunities for imprecision. (It also took forever, but my current employment status means that this was not as much of an issue.)
Next was the actual fabric cutting. I'm looking at r/sewing frequently enough to know adages about how sewing is 90% ironing, etc., but even with that prior I was amazed at how time-consuming and unintuitive cutting fabric from a pattern is. I pinned one of the pieces but it seemed to actively hurt - it ended up 2 inches longer than intended (??). I think in the future I'll try to use fabric weights.
Darts
Darts! Flashlight under chin, I was so scared of darts. But once I got to it, they were kind of nothing. Tie them off, press them. (This characterizes well why this might not actually be a good first garment? It's so foolproof that I sort of suspect you can monumentally fuck up without realizing it and it'll look more or less the same as if you did it perfect.)
That being said, do I like how they look? Not really. Three hypotheses for this: 1) I needed to reduce the size of the darts because the pattern assumed a 10-inch differential between hip and waist size, double what I neeeded. I think I didn't reduce them enough, so there's some . 2) I understand from YouTube tutorials that a problem called "pointy darts" plagues our world's beginner sewists. I guess you could say they're pointy. 3) Just to muddy the waters about what's going on here, gender-wise, I think maybe this is how it is supposed to look, and what I am dissatisfied with is an overall shape I guess I'd call feminine. Maybe I'd have like a more square shape
Lining
My first garment meant my first choice about whether to line it or not. Another example of agonizing about something that isn't a big deal: I was afraid that lining it would negatively affect its drape, but if anything I think got the drape closer to what I wanted. And
Bias Tape
Other Things
- This was my first time worrying about fabric... grip? cling? The ability for two pieces of fabric to slide past one another. This is particularly important for a skirt that wraps around you 1.5 times. I didn't know how to predict this because I don't know these fabrics' composition (they were acquired through a bargain mystery bundle situation), and I didn't really manage to solve it either. The lining helped some, I think not because the lining fabric clings/grips any less than the main fabric, but just because there's more weight on the pieces.
- Some other easily avoided errors, like realizing too late that I hasn't moved the zipper before stitching near it (even though that's The Thing You're Supposed To Not Do), so I got a little bit of a bubble looking thing on the topstitch.
- Beyond the dimensions, the not holding shape maybe could have been mitigated by the optional fusible fleece step on the canvas that I skipped. The last one I made is reasonably structurally sturdy, but I realize now that this fabric is listed as midweight canvas (no GSM given), and it definitely feels lighter than the canvas I used last time.
The most notable change to this was using an even smaller length of 7.5", instead of the 9" in my previous attempt and the 13.5" in the tutorial. Straight up - What Was He Thinking. I recall feeling well-motivated when I made this decision but I can't imagine what that motivation would be now. The 9" length of my previous attempt turned out very cute, I guess I just interpreted the length as having an unbounded linear effect on the cuteness of the bag. But with these dimensions, there's not enough material in the planes parallel to the zipper, which makes it bulge out a lot and lose its shape. Plus the zipper is in the shorter dimension when you view it from the top so it just looks like, why would you do that.
Other penitent post-construction thoughts:
- The boxed corners were slightly off in a few places, like my previous bag. Partly I am just getting impatient at this point in the process - boxing corners feels like I'm basically done so I rush a little through them to see the finished project. Also, I cut out 1.5" boxes, and I wonder if going smaller on them would have salvaged things a little bit, maybe 1" instead.
- Some other easily avoided errors, like realizing too late that I hasn't moved the zipper before stitching near it (even though that's The Thing You're Supposed To Not Do), so I got a little bit of a bubble looking thing on the topstitch.
- Beyond the dimensions, the not holding shape maybe could have been mitigated by the optional fusible fleece step on the canvas that I skipped. The last one I made is reasonably structurally sturdy, but I realize now that this fabric is listed as midweight canvas (no GSM given), and it definitely feels lighter than the canvas I used last time.
The sashiko pattern canvas on the bottom is from Firecracker, the rest from my mom. Particularly disappointing because (not necessarily communicated via these pictures) she and I agreed that this green is like the most perfect green we've ever seen and she didn't have much, less than a yard I think. But all else aside, I do think this color & pattern combination kind of goes off.