Striped Pencil Skirt

Its Sunday, and what can I say I'm already facing the Monday blues. I've just eaten a huge pizza and I'm trying to convince Rikki to pop to McDonalds and get me a Mcflurry. It's not going well, apparently he wants to watch the F1 and he's just asked me if I've done the ironing and if he has work shirts and Lil man has school tops.......FYI they don't .

Mainly I'm just feeling a bit meh? Which seems ridiculous but its true, I've cleaned the house today so I'm hoping some sewing tomorrow evening will chirp me up. 

But here's a thing I made recently! [i.e possibly the start of may?] I got this striped fabric from the lady at the carboot, It's some sort of waffle fabric with no stretch. First of all I wanted to make a box pleat skirt but opening up the fabric revealed that it was just a very thin strip. So I had to skip my plan and make a pencil skirt instead. I also had to give p any idea of matching the stripes across the side seams.

I did however managed to squeeze out enough to try and make a "bow back" Which actually turned out pretty awful, I should have realised that this fabric was to still to make a beautiful draped bow. So far I've been wearing it tucked into the skirt so you can't see it. I also cut the waistband/bow on the other grain so these stripes are vertical.

But if you do want to make your own bow tie all you do is cut your waistband longer than you need and then whip stitch the edges closed, I also recommend using a fabric with a give of drape.

  

Here you can see the awful pattern matching, the annoying thing is whilst one side is pretty much matched the other side is a hot mess. The perils of working with less fabric than you need eh?

I;m trying to remember if its horizontal or vertical stripes that are meant to be flattering? 

The pattern is the pencil skirt from the 2nd great British sewing bee book.

Here's how it ties at the top, its actually a cut variation on having a button tab. I am wondering if maybe it would work better if the waistband were wider? so the bow would be bigger? Kind of like the "Jojo bows" all the lil girls at school are wearing? If you don't know what the "Jojo bow" trend is just picture a small girl [under the age of 13] with a MAHOOSIVE bow on her head, these bows are typically a bright colour and are cover in glitter or diamante. Yes they are hugely tacky, and yes I am trying to work out if I'm too old to wear one......... 

Apart from the bow the skirt also closes with a bad ass lapped zip. I mean this thing is beautiful, its definitely one of my neatest lapped zips and it went in first time! Any I think I've finally worked out how to make sure the actual zip is concealed under the lap as well.

In other news!

We are fast approaching the summer holidays! I'm looking forward to spend time with lil man but I know my sewing and "me time" is going to take a pretty big hit! On the plus side we also have a wedding coming up in August and I'm really looking forward to that.

 Rikki also won a Hoverboard this week! 

We popped to our local Holdcroft Renault so Lil man could see a F1 car they had displayed there and they had a racing simulator and said that you got to do two laps and your fastest time went p on the board and the fastest overall won a prize. Anyway because Rikki is Mr videogame he was gagging to have a go! I decided not to because simulators tend to make me feel a bit queasy at best. In fact watching Rikki made me feel a bit woozy!

But long story short he had the fastest time of the day and won!

He's already pretty good on the over hoverboard [which is kind of like a segway but without anything to hang onto] I on the other hand have no sense of balance and it took me agggesssss to get it and even now I'm not brilliant!!!!

Much Love 

Frankie

xxx