Peter Pan: An Homage

 

 

...or something like that.  I got my rear in gear yesterday and pulled out my sewing machine.  I had to fix one of my husband's cassocks (the top stitching had come loose on the pockets), and figured I might as well get on with the green version of the cord skirt I mentioned in my previous post.

 

 

Did I mention that one of my kids was up for the day at 4:00 a.m. yesterday?  *cough*Boo*cough*  Which meant I was awake at 4:00 a.m.  Needless to say, I wasn't firing on all pistons yesterday.  

The topstitching repair was very straightforward, and the skirt cutting was quick because I didn't have to mark darts, but I made a small fitting error on the back piece that was only evident after I'd finished the thing.  Namely, that when I made the gold cord skirt last month, I forgot that I took another 1/2" out of the back piece.  For whatever reason, that was fine in the heavy weight cord (maybe the zipper+fixed waistband made a difference?) but it pulled uncomfortably across the hips in this lightweight version. 

 

This make was full of mistakes, from start to finish.

The first was applying the waistband to the hem, and finishing the whole thing (elastic insertion and hand sewing the gap) before realizing the mistake.  And since it is corduroy, all the seams are finished with zig-zag, and the seam allowances are sometimes finished as one...you see where I'm going with this.  

 

I grumbled and gracelessly unpicked the waistband from the last seam sewn, but quickly realized that it wasn't worth the effort to unpick where it attached to the hem, so I decided to make it a hem facing and call it good.  (I was going to use bias tape anyway, so it saved me some trouble--call it a happy accident?  I've been watching Bob Ross lately 😊)

 

I recut the waistband and attached it to the top and finished it, albeit about two hours later than I had anticipated.  Tried it on...too tight in the hips.  What the...?  

Then I remembered the additional bit I took out of the back and decided to narrow the seam allowances on the sides from 5/8" to almost nothing, tapering in to the waistband and again about 4" from the bottom.  (Like making a big arc over where my hips are, if that makes sense).

 That gave me enough room across the hips, but the thing was too long, so I turned up the hem facing once (for another 2") and stitched across and called it good.  I'm hoping the slightly thicker hem will help the skirt to fall nicely, as that is one problem with this lighter weight cord--it wants to ride up.  So far so good.

It is considerably more fitted than the blue version, but I like it--it strikes a nice balance between my very fitted cold weather skirts and my less fitted summer skirts.  The wider waistband is more finished looking, but the ban-rol keeps it comfortable (I think I could wear something tucked in and it would look okay, whereas the blue skirt doesn't look that great with a tucked in shirt).  

I almost wore the skirt with a newly thrifted green top, but I wanted to wear this set of jewelry and the greens clashed.  I've been kind of obsessed with this color palette since I saw a bouquet of flowers with a similar palette at church a few weeks ago.  The bouquet also had a pale lavender, which was pretty in the floral arrangement, but didn't look right with the beads.  This past week there was another arrangement that was similar but added a light blue hydrangea to the mix.  Anyway, I made this set from a bunch of odd beads in the right colors and I like the eclecticism of it, but also the unifying color palette.  I've been craving some brighter jewelry in silver tone, and this was just the thing.