A simple pencil skirt and three challenges!

This skirt is a pretty simple one. It is my go to pattern for a pencil shaped skirt. I made a couple of those allready. I wrote a blog about the first one I made. Now I challenged myself a bit more by adding some pattern matching and the blind hem sewing technique.

First challenge

The pattern stated that I need 1,30 metres for this skirt. I only had 0,9 metre (1 yard). There is the first challenge. I had enough for the front of the skirt and one half of the back. Some pieces were left, enough for the other back half? I had to do some fabric magic here. And it was a tough one, because of the print. I had to do some pattern matching. I layered the fabric pieces over each other, like shown below and made sure the print matches.

Then I used the tracing wheel and a ruler to mark the stitching line. I pressed a bit harder on the wheel so the marks were pressed trough onto the layer beneath.

This way it was easy to see exactly were to stitch. I made sure I also aligned the print vertically. Then pinned it with a lot of pins perpendicular and simply stitched over them. Don’t tell my mom!

After stitching with a straight stitch I secured the fabric from fraying with running stitch 4. This stitch makes sure the fabrics stays flat, such a nice sewing technique.

Then I cut off the excess fabric and carefully ironed the seam line.

Can you tell were the added fabric is? There are two extra horizontal seam lines on the lower right… Pretty invisible!

Second challenge

The second challenge in this skirt was a blind hem. At least, I thought it would be a challenge. In fact it is super simple to sew a blind hem. Just follow the next steps.

Fold the hem at the desired length and pin it on the inside at 1 cm from the end.
After pinning fold the hem like so:
Re-pin it
Select blindstitch no 9 on your machine
Attach blindstitch foot 5 and stitch with the metal guide along side the fold.
The result
Stitched

Inside

Outside

If you don’t own a blindstitch foot you can also use the basic reverse pattern foot 1/1c. In this little video I show you the simple steps again plus the use of this basic foot.

If you want to learn more about how to sew a blind hem, like when and how to adjust stitch width or length? Then watch this how to sew a blind hem tutorial:

Third challenge

How to style this pencil skirt? Well, that’s no challenge….choosing which style is. This fabric contains so many beautiful colors so I can easily style it different ways. There is also a bit gold in it, so with the coming December holidays I have time to sew a golden festive blouse to match. You might wanna follow me on Instagram to see if I succeed. Wink;-)