I've long lamented my warm weather wardrobe. A lot of this is a function of my basic unhappiness with hot weather, and my inability to find clothing that ticks all the boxes for me: cool enough to wear in 80% humidity and 90-100 degree temps + hot flashes without central AC all summer, fitted enough to feel like "me" but not so fitted as to make me sweat a lot or be grumpy when bloated, covers my arms and shoulders for skin cancer avoidance reasons, but doesn't look frumpy or oversized, not too short, not too long, yadda-yadda-yadda. My skin is fair enough that I have been known to burn
through clothing, so I have to watch sheerness too.
One of my chief complaints about summer skirts (and dresses, really) is one of volume--as in, I don't like a lot of volume. I generally don't like big billowy skirts, fit and flare doesn't really suit my style or proportions, and maxi skirts annoy me because they are always too long (and, by the way, trap heat around the legs). The fitted pencil skirts I prefer the rest of the year are often too heavy for summer weather (or too fitted to be cool).
The other issue with summer-wear is that it tends not to last more
than a season (or two at best) because of the above-said weather.
Summer clothing tends to need washing after nearly every wearing, and no
fabric is meant to stand up to that kind of wash and wear for months on
end. Which is how I found myself staring down hot weather this year
with a skirt and dress shortage. Again.
I had a few
lengths of linen that I intended to make summer skirts with, but the
fabric languished as I suddenly found myself on lockdown with all my
kids, homeschooling, being ill for weeks and weeks, and trying not to
lose my mind. We are still homeschooling for another week and a half,
but we had a long break over the holiday weekend; I was able to eke out
some drafting and sewing time.
My first thought was to make more Everyday Skirts to avoid having to
fit a new skirt block on limited time and patience, but sometimes I find
too them too voluminous with bare legs (it's a weird thing I have about
having feedback from my clothes against the back of my legs--if I can't
feel my skirt against my legs and my skirt is knee length or slightly
above, I worry that I'm flashing someone).
To start
with, I made a clay-colored linen skirt as a straight Everyday skirt
make, just to get back into the swing of things since I've not sewn a
full garment for months, but despite some size fiddling, I didn't love
the sweep or fit. I set it aside to deal with later (and have since fixed it, but not worn it yet). Will blog details when I have photos to share.
Next I set to drafting, which requires more mental space for me. I decided to use
Helen's tutorial
on converting culottes to a skirt, since I really liked the narrower
sweep of the skirt, but the ease that suggested it would work with linen
or rayon. Readers who have been around a while will also remember that
I altered a pair of RTW culottes last summer
on the same principle and really liked the sweep of the finished skirt
(just not the length or overall fit). I don't have the Winslow Culottes
pattern, but I do have the
Made By Rae Rose pants (total fitting disaster for me), and I like the pleats and volume on them, so decided to start there.
I was nervous about the sizing, since the finished garment measurement
chart and the body measurement chart on that pattern are a bit bonkers.
Compare the XS sizes to see what I mean: if your waist measures 26",
how is a finished waist of 34" ever going to fit at the high waist? My
natural waist is somewhere in the neighborhood of 32", give or take, and
a 34" finished waistband is going to gape on
me, who never fit
an XS anything in my life. I had cut an XL based on my hip measurement
(although I'm closer to 42" at the hip, but would rather have to take
something in than let it out on a tiny seam allowance). I did some
measurements after folding out the crotch curves and truing the lines,
and decided to stick with the size and keep the seam allowance on the
center seam, but cut on the fold, just for an extra bit of wiggle room.
The result was a great teal linen skirt that is comfortable in the heat and I'm happy to wear. My only complaint is that the waistband is slightly too tall--I'm very short-waisted, so even 1" waistbands tend to roll on me, because my ribs end less than an inch above my natural waist. I may go back and redo it as a 1" band, just to reduce the rolling, but I kind of like the look of the higher one. I did three lines of 3/8" elastic to match the width of the front waistband, instead of the elastic width recommended by the Rose pattern, and I like it. I cut to 14" long, which was perfect (instead of the 16" recommended for the size). I like all the ditch stitching on this pattern too.
I also experimented with interfacing on this skirt, since I wanted to see if something worked better than Petersham. (I've tried elastic, fusible interfacing, waistband interfacing, grograin, and Petersham, and Petersham tends to behave the best over time and feel the most comfortable, but it does wrinkle slightly with washing). I ended up interfacing with quilting cotton, which is okay. After doing some alterations on my husband's suit pants over the winter, I'm curious to try a stiffer sew-in interfacing, like what was on his pants--Ban Roll, I think is the trade name--but it only seems to come in huge rolls for lots of dollars, so I'll wait until I see a small amount somewhere to try it. I suppose horsehair braid might work too.
My next skirt on the same pattern hack was a Brussels Washer Linen in "Poppy", which
isn't red at all, but a nice deep flame orange, exactly what I wanted. I decided to take the waistband down to 1" and see if it rolled less, and interface with Petersham again. I
cut everything out, pinned carefully, and tried not to let the fabric
"hang" to keep the rayon from stretching and the linen from growing, but
something happened between cutting and sewing, and I found myself with a
front and back skirt piece that didn't match at all--1/2" off on one
side, and more than an inch on the other.
Rather than just truing the
edges as I should have done, I tried to ease in the side seams, to disastrous effect. The
pockets gaped badly and somehow pulled back from the front, the
waistband looked really weird; I thought the project was a wash. The skirt went into the naughty corner to sit for a day before I could tackle it again.
It turns out that unpicking most of the side seams (from the
pocket bags to the hem) and repinning with a bit of hang to the fabric, as well as truing the hem, was the
way to fix it, and I'm pretty happy with the result now. The fabric is
slightly more sheer than I expected (and than other colors in this
substrate) but I always wear a slip anyway, so that's okay.
As the school year winds down, I'm finding it easier to carve out small bits of time for my things here and there, but it is still going to be a long summer. For sewing, I'm finding that leaving my sewing machine case and thread box in an easy-access place next to the kitchen (where I sew), but not in the way of foot traffic, is a good way to allow small snatches of sewing. Normally I have to do a big set up and take down of sewing stuff, to keep the living room clear of clutter, so the trade off is more stuff around, but with the home school books and things littering the living room anyway, it's not much more mess to add. It's worth the mental boost I get from some creative activity.
Next up: Emerald tops from the leftovers, plus a few things for the girls.
