Pink summer skirt

I ordered this pink patterned cotton fabric online, for quilting.  But the colour is so very bright it doesn't go with anything else I've got.

What to do.  Make something else!

Like... maybe a skirt?

Good idea.  Here we go:

I'm really pleased how this came out. It's a length I like on me.  I tried to make this pattern before (my grey inverted pleat skirt) but messed up the pattern piece for the second version.  This is basically version number 3.

 

This is also my first lapped zip.  I had always tried to do invisible zips before, or whatever the technique was that I was going for.  I'm not really too sure about that point to be honest.

The idea was to do this type of zip in a workshop given by a friend of mine.  I ended up taking another fabric along to this. 

But my sewing machine manual gives detailed instructions on this kind of zip.  With plenty of graphics.  I like a good graphic or two (dozen), they're right up my street.

It went beautifully!

 

I am exceedingly happy with the evenness of the two halves of the back: to the left and to the right of the zip.  It is so easily done to have one side be higher than the other.  My solution to getting around this problem: I put the zip in first, and only then attached the two facings that fold inside.

The first facing is easy: plonk it in any which way you like.  The tricky one is obviously the second one.  I had pinned this and checked very carefully when I put the sewing machine needle down.  I'm sure I corrected the needle placement at least once before I ever started sewing.  You can also swivel things round if you feel like it when you have the needle in the fabric - so you can check a different angle, if you feel this helps.  Make sure you're happy with where this second seam is going to be, and you're good to go!

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I have to say though that I cut the lining too small for the front and found that I couldn't attach it to the facings very well at all.  I ended up pushing this piece under the facing and sewing on the right side. Which would have been okay, except I attached it correctly at the bank.  There is some very unsightly bunching going on at the change from front to back.  I learnt something else: if you do a thing one way, don't suddenly go and do it a different way in another part of the garment when those two areas need to be attached to each other.
A-hum, okay.

* * *

I am already blogging about this though I still have to fix one issue. I twisted the bottom of the lining a bit and want to un-do that half. It shouldn't take long to do and it also looks done. So there.

Nice little summer skirt for next year.

Very happy.

Skittish A-Line Skirt in silver grey

This was supposed to be the bell shaped skirt (free pattern published on Knitty.com) but the bottom flare seems to have dropped out due to the heaviness of the yarn. The hemline is still quite flared, much more than I would like. The skirt does look a bit like it's skitting about!

The yarn is the silver grey colourway in Gedifra Samina. I like this yarn because it looks lovely and glossy but I must say that I much prefer it in black. The reason being that the yarn is 75% wool (the inner core of the thread) and 25% nylon (that's the much thinner thread encasing the inner core, sort of knitted around it!) and if the nylon thread breaks or moves about then the much darker wool thread inside pokes out. Unfortunately those little bulges are quite noticeable and I should think that this is only going to get worse with wear. I have poked the bulges back into the stitches and with a bit of pulling and prodding towards the wrong side - but I am not at all sure how long it'll stay this way.
The Knitty.com pattern promises a very comfortable skirt, and they are spot on about that! The skirt is very nice to wear, with one caveat: it can do with a slip underneath because the star stitch pattern does leave some gaps that make the skirt see-through in places.

The star stitch itself was interesting to knit: you knit five stitches together but don't slip them off the needle, you do a yarnover, knit the same five stitches together for a third stitch, do another yarnover and a third time knitting the fives stitches together and then finally slip those fives stitches off the left needle. You make five stitches out of five stitches. The result is a sort of star shape.
It is very difficult to knit off those five stitches three times with normal tension. I found that even if I knitted the five stitches very loosely in the round before, the stitches just weren't long enough to do this star stitch easily. It became a major headache. The best way to overcome this is, in the row preceding the star stitch, to knit either one or even two of the five stitches off with a double loop (wrapping the yarn over the right needle a second time before pulling the thread through the stitch on the left needle, then slipping the stitch off the left needle. The stitch on the right needle has an extra loop over the right needle - if this makes sense!) - then dropping the extra loop when knitting the star stitch row: slipping the five stitches from the left needle to the right and slipping the wrapped loops in the process, then put these five stitches that are now longer than before back on the left needle to knit off the five stitches together for the star stitch. That's the best method to avoid struggling with five stitches that are just too tight to cope with.
In the star increase round that asks for four stitches to be knitted together, making five out of four stitches, - I only added one extra loop, a second one was not necessary.

It was lots of fun to knit this and it only took me two weeks too. It was nice being able to insert the waist elastic before I finished knitting the whole thing - I have huge problems with WIP-finishing and I find that if I do as much weaving in of ends, sewing up bits and inserting elastic as early as I can, then the last bit of weaving in the last loose thread is so much easier due to it being bearable!
I think I am going to knit this skirt again, in a different yarn and colour. I may replace the star stitch stripes with cables, not twisting the same direction but towards each other. I'll just have to smuggle the 'invisible' increases in there somewhere!