Spice Cake Everyday Skirt

 Hey, look!  I made something I don't hate!  This is, to be perfectly frank, nothing short of a miracle.  I've had a LOT of sewing fails this month.  A lot.  So much so that I've nearly decided to stop sewing for myself and my girls for a while.  (I probably am going to stop for a while, but I'll get to that later).

But!  I made a skirt!  That fits well!  That I like to wear!!  It is just my basic Everyday skirt, size medium, with 1" added to the length.  This time I changed the pleats to mimic how the pleats on the Washi dress fit (and also my failed Simplicity skirt).  I think it is probably my most flattering iteration yet.

Word to the wise, however.  If you make your back elastics too short, the front of the skirt will poof out in hugely unflattering and frump-inducing ways.  (Ask me how I know).  My original elastics were 10"--I have no idea why I thought this was long enough, but they were elastics I had pulled out of something else and thought they were okay.  Oof, no.  So I added about 2" to the ends and now it is just right.  Poof-factor gone.

A side note.  I know some people like a lot of volume in their clothing, and poof factor would be a plus for them, but I do not.  I find that a lot of volume swamps my frame and just looks bad on me.  I also find as I'm getting older, that poofy clothing feels too "young" to me.

So less poof.  This fabric is from the Kaufman Essex line, which is the cotton-linen blend, rather than the Brussels line I prefer which is linen-rayon, but I loved the color so much I decided to go for it.  It is a little stiff, but I imagine it will soften with washing/wearing over time.  The drape is decent for the fiber content, and it doesn't wrinkle that much.  

I made a 1" waistband because I'm finding that the 1.5" waistband called for by the pattern wants to roll on my figure.  I'm very short-waisted, so wearing a high-waisted skirt with a high waist band doesn't usually work for me.  I did do two lines of 1/2" elastic in the back, and while the front and back widths don't quite match, I like the fit and feel of this better than the 1" elastic.

I like this outfit a lot.  Which is saying something.  I'm trying hard to find myself in my body, and to be comfortable in my clothes.  Not just literally comfortable, but "this feels like me" comfortable.  I've really outgrown the styles of my 30s, and I'm sort of stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out what feels right to me on the cusp of 40.  

I will say that I've been taking up all my hemlines on old makes as I feel better in shorter lengths right now.  I could perhaps lose the extra inch I add to this pattern, but this length still feels fine to me.  It's a weird place to be--trying to figure things out.  I'll get there in time, I suppose.  Or I won't.  But that's okay too.

This one works.