Friday, August 10, 2012

the summer of the skirt: the Ginger, take 2

My first Ginger was my experiment.  It was the most in-depth pattern I've ever worked with so I struggled quite a bit with the fit and the pattern.  I am happy to report that my second Ginger is a raving success!  I. Love. This. Skirt!!

Colette Ginger
Helloooo wrinkles!
I made a couple of key adjustments to my process:
  1. Sizing.  According to Colette's size chart I'm a 6.  I made my second skirt in an 8 so it would sit slightly lower on my waist.  To be honest, at the end of it all, there isn't a whole lot of difference in the sizing of the first and second skirts.  I still needed to adjust the size of the waistband but I was able to do this in the pattern cutting phase rather than waiting until it was all sewn up to take apart.  The slightly larger size gave me a little more wiggle room with the fit and will allow me to wear the skirt into fall with tights.
  2. Pattern.  I transferred the pattern to freezer paper which helped a lot in making sure I was cutting the right size.  Pattern paper is so flimsy that I think I'm going to try to trace all of my patterns on to it from here on out so as to not accidentally destroy (or lose!) an original pattern piece while cutting.
  3. Notches.  On my first skirt, I cut out all of the notches on from the pattern in my fabric.  Badly.  So when I needed to take out some of the seams I had very little fabric that hadn't been chopped to bits by my notching skills.  In a genius maneuver, I used chalk instead this time.
  

Tracing the pattern was a huge boon to my cutting skills and it allowed me to easily make adjustments to the pattern - like adding more length to the skirt - without destroying the pattern.  


I wore this skirt for the first time today, while visiting a museum with my brother (though I was quite over-dressed for a trip to Costco afterwards!).  I say enough how happy I am with this skirt and how great I felt wearing it!  Love love love the Ginger!! :-)

Colette Ginger

5 comments:

  1. This looks great! What type of fabric is it?

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    1. Thanks :-) You probably can't tell from the pictures but it's actually cotton. It's a bit stiffer than most cottons so I'm hoping it loosens up a little during wearing/washing. It's a micro-polkadot pattern.

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  2. Classic skirt! J Crew would sell one like it for 100+ dollars. Well done!

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    1. Thanks :-) My first Ginger attempt was a bit of a disaster so I am super pleased with how this one came out!

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  3. VERY MUCH a success! Turned out perfect.

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