This year I entered sixth form, and the school uniform requirements have changed. From years 7 to 11 (aged 11-15) English schools typically wear a uniform. Mine consisted of a green blazer, green and white stripey blouse (fondly nicknamed the “toothpaste” blouse ) and a green pleated skirt. It was not pretty. But for the next two years of sixth form the dress code is extended to “work wear” which basically means that you need to wear skirt suits and trouser suits with a top of your choice. No dresses allowed
So, I decided that there would be no point in buying any of this stuff (except blazers, I’m not quite at that level of expertise yet) so most of my sixth form clothing has been me-made. This is the first skirt.
I feel like a can’t really call this skirt a pencil skirt because it doesn’t go in enough at the legs so I think I’ll call it a straight skirt instead. This was my first attempt at lining a skirt and it went fairly well. I only attached it at the waistband and the zip as I was afraid that if I hemmed it to the outer material it would affect the drape. I wish I had interfaced the waistband as I can now see why you’d want to because it just isn’t stiff enough. I didn’t sew the zip in high enough so had a little gap between the end of the zip and the waistband so instead of unpicking the zip I cut out a patch of the same fabric and sewed one side to the left hand side and sewed a popper to the other. It worked but it definitely wasn’t the correct way to do it.
The pattern I used was New Look 6335. It was an unlined pattern, but I just cut the same pieces as I did for the outside, excluding the waistband. I ended up cutting so much off the length that the split went entirely which does make it more difficult to run to the bus stop in the mornings. NB: Next time, please put one in! The only adjustment I made was to shave a couple of inches off each side to fit my baby hips.
As you can see in the pic above, I had a few issues with darts. Typically, a week later we did darts in textiles and so now I know exactly what to do. Funnily enough, the teacher pointed out this skirt as an example of darts. I should probably have let her know that I made it. The table below is one I made as part of my coursework and I thought that it might be useful for some people.
This pic just shows off the lining underneath. I was rushing so both the lining and the exterior fabric were hemmed by the machine. The issue I’m having is that the lining is so slippery that it twists the skirt around as I walk. Maybe this is because It just isn’t tight enough?
Yay, you can’t really see the zip in the back! Instead of the button and buttonhole required by the pattern I used a popper. I tried to make a buttonhole. It was perfect on the practice time, the moment I put the real thing through the machine I get nothing. And I didn’t change anything! Argh it’s so frustrating. But a popper will do for now, until I figure out how to do them.
Please excuse the hole in my tights. This was after a long day of school. On fridays, sixth formers at my school get to go home one hour early. Because of buses that was impossible so we had a lovely trip to costa instead. En route I conned one of my new school friends Ainjiel-Shaolee Clark into taking these beautiful photos for me. Thank you Ainjiel!
‘Til next time,
Lauren x
