Going back in time

Today's post is about a pattern I'm very fond of, partly for the style and partly because this is the pattern I used to make my first ever item of clothing, about 5/6 years ago.  It's Style 1241, a 6 gored maxi skirt.  I originally made it with zero sewing knowledge so as you can imagine there were a lot of flaws.  The pattern, while detailed, does assume quite a bit of pre-existing sewing knowledge and I remember spending significant amounts of time on the phone to my mother asking what various things meant.  However, I loved it and wore it until it actually fell apart.  The original skirt was in colours very similar to these and when I spotted this stretch cotton on Goldhawk road I had to have it.

This pattern eats fabric, I used about 3.5m, although the fabric was fairly narrow.  However, I think it's worth it as I love gored skirts, they're so flattering.  I didn't make any adjustments when sewing it up except that the waist band piece is damaged and clearly at some point has had a chunk removed from the middle so I had to create a new waistband piece.  As I still had part of it, I was given the width of the piece an simply had to measure the skirt pieces and add a few cm for the overlap, not exactly rocket science.  I remember the waistband being an issue on my first version clearly this is why and my understanding of how to fix it was sketchy back in the day.  This time, I got it nailed first time!  It's amazing what a difference practice makes!

I may wear this skirt pretty much every day for the rest of the summer now.  Anyone following my me-made-may photos, prepare to be very bored!  Also at this rate there is a danger of my entire wardrobe becoming 1970s themed.

My lovely sister took these photos for me in my local park, thanks Nini. I love this park and the band stand. I saw a couple getting married there last summer and it was so pretty, like the perfect place (on a sunny day) to get married and to take blog photos.

It has just occurred to me that we are now not even at the end of May and I have almost achieved my vintage pattern pledge.  This makes me happy as I love my vintage patterns and being able to fit vintage makes into my wardrobe.  I'm sure I'll properly outstrip my pledge this year as I currently have plans for several more makes and they're not all from 70s patterns either!  How're you getting on with yours?