A few months ago, I went into a fabric shop at Walthamstow Market and left my sense tied up to a lamppost outside. I bought eight metres of fabric in there that day, and that fabric sat in my stash for a long time. Every so often I would take out a piece, look at it, and go, "Nope. Still no idea" and put it away again. I'd only had a plan for one out of the four, and as soon as I got it home I realised it wasn't going to work (I'd bought enough crepe for a pair of close-fitting ankle-grazing trousers and not the enormous high-waisted swishy things I actually wanted to make), so it all just sat there, making me feel like I was rubbish at fabric shopping and should maybe just stop trying.
After a conversation with a friend who's much better at this stuff than me, I decided to make it my Experimental Fabric Pile. Since I had no idea what to do with it, surely it wouldn't matter if what I made didn't end up being wearable? I could just try random shit with no expectation that it would work, and if it did, bonus.
I have literally no idea what this fabric is. It's stretchy and it doesn't fray, but it's not jersey. It's closer to some kind of scuba or neoprene, but I'm not sure it's either of those. I am not a fabric savant. But I had a metre and a half of it, and I thought a skirt was the obvious choice. After my first successful attempt at Vogue 7910, I was curious to see if it would work in this kind of material.
Pictured: No idea.
This fabric is super-stretchy, and mistake number one was cutting the same size as I did with the red one. It was MASSIVE. I had to take in every side seam quite substantially. Having done that and finding that the skirt still pulled over my head very easily, I decided there wasn't a whole lot of point in trying to sew a zip into this thing, so I didn't. Mistake number two was getting distracted when trying to decide what to do about the waistband and sewing it up as though it were a tie closure. I had zero interest in unpicking it and not enough fabric to make another one (I had three-quarters of a metre less than the pattern called for in the first place), so I pondered for a while and eventually put a rib-knit band around the top. It probably isn't the most elegant solution, but eh. To be honest, it's still a bit big, and I'm considering taking it in again.
I also didn't hem it because I liked the raw edge, but having worn it a few times I now think it might be too long (a certain length of navy skirt can give me unpleasant school uniform flashbacks), so I will either hem it or cut it down a bit.
Whatever else you might say about it, it does great things when I move:
So what did I learn from this experiment?
1. Fabric recommendations on pattern envelopes are not mandates.
2. Stretchy stuff needs to be cut smaller.
3. I need to pay a bit more attention to what I'm doing.
4. This pattern is still awesome.
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