It's a Wrap

Continuing with my vintage sewing theme I've made up another of the vintage patterns I scored in a pattern haul a few months ago.

Cue this cute pattern:

It's Simplicity 7498, 1967 pattern. It's a simple wrap over skirt, with various different options for closure and come in two lengths, mini and just above the knee. However this is a single size pattern with a waist size of 25 inches, so I had to grade the pattern.

I traced the pattern pieces and used my book with grading rules to grade up two sizes. I think one would have been fine, but it's a wrap skirt so it's forgiving in fit.

I scoured my stash for appropriate fabric and found a piece of black denim which has a nice faded fold line right down it! - oh well, I thought I'd use it anyway. It was barely 70cm deep and I only just managed to cut the skirt from it. I used quilting cotton for the facing and pieced together denim to make the pocket.

I decided to leave the bottom unhemmed, but did sew a line of stitching to prevent any fraying from going mad. I really wanted a buckle and leather fastening, but didn't have one the right size or any black leather for that matter.

It's been sat waiting to be finfished for a few weeks as I needed to find a fastening solution. Today I managed to get my hands on a couple of D rings and used those instead, making the tabs from the very small offcuts of denim that were left (I added these after adding the facing and should really have sandwiched them inbetween the layers, but I don't suppose anyone is going to see them). I really did use every scrap of fabric for this!

This denim is hefty and even my trusty Bernina found some of the thicker layers tricky. I had to go really slow. The side seams are flat felled - my first attempt at this - super easy, but you do need a wider seam allowance than my usual 1.2cm. This pattern has 1.5cm.

My construction on this is a bit rough. The waist facing didn't quite meet the front edge - but then I realised it should have a facing along the edge too, which I decided to omit, just turning and hemming - I didn't look at the instructions and should have added a few cm to the waist facing to account for this.

It looks fine and has that edgy punky style I love, but decent topstitching thread would have helped with the finish of the garment, but I'll certainly make some more of these. A quick and easy sew.

I'm impressed with the coverage, the overlap is a decent width and you are not doing to get any accidental flashes of undergarments with this skirt. I can see this getting lots of wear - easy to throw on in the summer and would also look great with leggings/ tights and boots in the winter. Another Vintage winner.