Happy Monday! The holidays are getting even closer and what kind of project do I have for y’all today…? Why, a pencil skirt for WORK, of course! Because who doesn’t think about WORK ALL THE TIME?! Oh, man… can’t wait till Turkey Day… need….help…
Anyhoo, here’s another Butterick project for you! B5566:
Another easy project, and another size 14+ pattern! I must have bought this at the same time as my Dress of Disappointment since I erred on the larger size. At least this time it worked!
I am in need of more pencil skirts in my life. I only owned 2 before this and they are tragically too small. I blame the dryer, not my ballooning bottom and waist. Except one hasn’t been dried as it’s dry clean only… sigh.
I wasn’t sure what top to pair with it, so I threw in my Simplicity Shirt of Doom for giggles.
The pattern doesn’t have you line the skirt, but I know I’ll wear this year-round here in Tucson, so tights need some lining to prevent the inevitable awkward skirt-eating crotch.
I cut the lining from the back pattern piece and traced the completed front skirt piece so I didn’t have to bother with unnecessary seaming. Once I was ready to add the zipper (before the yoke is attached), I basted the lining to the shell and left some room to attach the zipper to the shell lining only.
This way, you can flip the lining edges under and slip stitch the lining to the zipper before adding the yoke piece, like so:
I also threw in a bit of twill tape while sewing the yoke to the waist for extra stability.
Once the yoke was sewn, I slip stitched it to the zipper as directed and tacked it to the lining fabric on the side seams so it doesn’t flop around too much.
Everything is fitting pretty well and it’s a comfortable skirt, but there’s a few bunches here and there that I could do without.
Things kind of went haywire with the butt darts. I have no idea what I did wrong as I’ve been a pretty good dart-sewer my whole life.
Well, this will be a work skirt and I do lots of sitting at work, so I don’t think my pointy butt will be a problem.
So now for the details! I love top stitching!
My machine (Odin) had a problem bunching the waist fabric when I tried top stitching it, so I did it by hand instead.
Here’s a close-up of the top stitching on the front part of the skirt, done by Odin:
I think that about does it! I hope you all have a decent few days before Thanksgiving. And if you’re off of work all week, well then, LUCKY YOU! 😀
See you on Turkey Day!
-RED
I love that yoke detail! You’re braver than I am to attempt something like that with a stripe, LOL. (And yeah, I’m def. working through Wednesday this week, so I feel your pain…)
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Yay! I think the yoke would look awesome in a faux leather. Maybe for #2? 🙂
Go us for working this week! That’s called DEDICATION and deserves a RAISE… don’t you think?
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yes it is a little big but still so cute! maybe take it in on the sides? or have it be a looser type skirt.
also, i love that top!! what pattern is that? i love the neck detail.
and i don’t think your posts are showing up my in reader…cause i haven’t seen the last few posts from you…or maybe i am just looking the wrong times or something. i don’t know!
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The shirt is Simplicity 1613. I have a post about it here: https://sewredy.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/throwback-thursday-simplicity-shirt-of-doom/
The shirt was kind of a head-scratcher at the time. I bought it because I thought it would be easy!
Hmm that’s weird about the reader… maybe it’s a glitch? I think the same thing happened to one of my friends. I usually post around 5 a.m. AZ time… maybe I should post a little later lol!
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Well the title of your post makes me leery of trying it! Haha
But maybe I still will anyways. I do love a challenge…especially one that makes me want to tear my hair out . Like making a fancy peplum shirt for my husbands work Christmas party this Saturday…so fun lol
5am?! Lol I am a night owl so I post mine at like midnight usually lol I try to post earlier!
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