A Simple Asymmetrical Skirt

This is dead easy and doesn't need a pattern. But you need to wear your top over the waist, or a big sash or something, for reasons that will become obvious!

I made this out of two metres of 115cm wide rayon blend that I got from Spotlight. Two metres makes a longish skirt on an average-height person and you can obviously tweak this. The width of the fabric determines the amount of wrap over.

Cut in half, align the two pieces so that the pattern or nap runs the run way, then sew together (with the the right side inside, obviously). Finish your seams in your usual way. I don't have an overlocker (serger) so I sew a normal straight seam, sew another one about 1/4 inch away inside the seam line, trim close to this and do a closish zig-zag over the cut edge. An overlocker would be MUCH faster.

Make a small hem at the top and the bottom - you aren't going to thread elastic through the top so it can be as narrow as you like.

Put on your person and use a couple of safety pins to wrap and pin the excess fabric around your waist so that it falls like this. (Hence the need to cover the waistline with clothing as it does not look too flash!

It took me about an hour of sewing, I think, but over several hours interspersed with usual domestic and school holiday stuff.

This gives you an easy asymmetrical skirt (I like asymmetry) that fits anyone and, importanly in my case, can be adjusted easily as I lose more weight.

The rayon blend drapes beautifully. The skirt will look different depending on the drape of your fabric - stiffer and thicker fabrics still look good, it will make good winter skirts too to be worn with tights - and obviously you can have it shorter if you wish. I am just about to experiment with a much shorter one to be worn with black leggings. (If I am brave enough - it is YEARS since I wore any sort of short skirt!)

I didn't invent this, or even unvent it - I was told how to do it by someone else, but I don't think it was her original idea either.

The safety pins need a bit of fiddling at first, to get the position right, but then no-one would be able to tell that you are held together with them! 

A New Wardrobe

I realised the other day that I had lost enough weight to need new clothes when my jeans fell down in front of the whole family. Fortunately I could see the funny side. I started making a pile for charity of fat clothes and went out and bought a few cheapish things in the post Christmas sales to tide me over until I have lost the same amount again!

I also sorted through all of my craft supplies and dressmaking fabric and patterns - partly to get my stuff organised before the start of the academic year (in my case, mid-February)and partly to start thinking about making new clothes. I used to make most of my clothes, for many many years, but I got bored in recent years as I put on more and more weight (that, and the emergence of some excellent plus-size shops in my local shopping mall) so haven't done anything much for ages. So this year I hope to bring a succession of new projects fresh from the sewing machine!

In the clean-up I found this nice length of pane velvet in shades of blues and greens that was straight enough and long enough to become a short winter scarf with a minimum of effort. It was originally going to go into the textile art boxes, and in fact some other scraps of it have, but with a bit of trimming and a quick zig-zag round the edges (would have been better with an overlocker but I don't have one) it's become a nice scarf. Not exactly dressmaking, but the first thing I have made for my new wardrobe on the sewing machine! 

Saturday Sky

This is actually a Friday Sky, but it's so much more interesting than the one I took this morning out the back door! George took this yesterday in the Victorian High Country near Merrijig. If you look closely you can see two plumes of smoke, on the slopes of Mount Buller. That's a real Aussie bushfire, folks, three kilometres away from where he was. 

Passion Flower

And a very happy new year to the world! We had a quiet one - some friends over for a tiny party until about 9pm, then some people went to bed, Baby Bear and her friend watched a DVD and fell into bed straight after midnight, and I followed almost immediately and read till latish.

This is a picture of a passion flower, the flower of the passion fruit vine, on top of our roof. Taken by Baby Bear a couple of days ago. (We have a flat roof, so it's safer than it sounds!) Sadly the vine is going to have to be either heavily trimmed back, or come down altogether. The flowers are spectacular though.