Make a Wish

I've had this Echino "Wish" border print fabric in my stash for some time, wanting to make a wrap skirt from it, but not wanting to mess up my beautiful fabric. I used LiEr, from ikatbag's tutorial to figure out dart sizes and positions. I did quite a few things differently to the tutorial and there are a few other things I would change if I was doing it over. I am really happy with the final result though.



I added a facing along the front edge, using knowlege I gained from sewing this wrap skirt. I also added a facing along the top edge, instead of just folding it over like is done in the tutorial. I made the facing by laying the skirt out flat with it's darts over some paper and traced along the top edge to make a pattern. After attaching the facing to the top edge of the skirt, I understitched it to make a nice top edge, and I also stitched along each of the darts to stop the facing from popping out the top of the skirt. Both facings were interfaced.



I was really undecided about the ties. I was going to put three largish buttons up near the top of the skirt, matching one of the colours in the print, but I had trouble finding buttons that were the right colours in the right size. I went back and looked at wooden buttons, and found some heart-shaped buttons. I was really in two minds about them. If they were round, I would have done it, but I thought they made too much of a statement, which would compete with the bold print on the skirt. I probably should have grabbed them anyway, as they would be good for a skirt in a plain fabric, I think. So I decided to go with ties. Instead of placing a long tie on the inside edge of the skirt, I inserted it into the dart on the left side and placed a button and buttonhole on that edge. This means that I don't have all that extra tie popping up out of the back of my skirt, and makes it a little easier to put on, since I don't have to thread it through anywhere either.

   

One thing that I would do differently is with the measurements for the darts, it is suggested that you take 1.5 x your hip measurement. This means that you have half a body measurement of overlap. I think this is a little excessive. It aso meant that when I wrapped the skirt around me, I couldn't do the ties up without the skirt being too loose. I know that the original tutorial doesn't have the strap stitched into the dart, but it does have it slipping through there, so there would have been the same problem. You need a bit of extra space for the knot as well. I am thinking next time around, I will use about one and a third times my hip measurement for the length of fabric. I ended up folding the strap back and stitching it to the skirt. Not ideal, but you can't see it once it is tied up. I will be topstitching along the edge I stitched down though, so there isn't too much stress on the fabric.


SYST: This project used approximately six fat quarters of fabric. +96 - 6 = +90