Sassy Skirts

I was looking in my wardrobe yesterday and realised that I now have more skirts and dresses than I ever had. Maybe I'm finally becoming a lady.

I really like the feel of a long swishy skirt, I remember when I was young Mum asked Nanna to make us dressy outfits and I told them I wanted a Maxi Skirt. My sister and I got matching outfits in different colours, floral print skirt and bolero, along with long sleeved lace blouse. Mum arranged a professional photographer to come to our house, I'll have to find the photos.

For a long time I barely had a skirt in my wardrobe, then they started filtering in beginning with black crushed velvet one and a blue cargo style, about 12 years ago they are still in my wardrobe, waiting to be dieted back into. It's only in the last couple of years that skirts have played a major part in my life. I like swishy ones, the longer the better.

I've been buying a lot of my skirts from Tree of Life, long, tiered and very comfortable to wear. And there is the hope that the company is doing good for third world countries. I know I could easily make my own but the fabric isn't so easy to find.

My latest purchase was a long purple skirt, I had bought the style before but getting home I remembered why I hadn't worn it often, it's very sheer. Great for hot day around the house but standing in front of any light source left nothing to the imagination. I wear long skirts to cover my legs not highlight them.

Found an almost perfect match in cotton voile at work to make a petticoat with, was going to just run up a straight slip and hope for the best. Then remembered had a book with skirt patterns, Sassy Skirts and found the perfect pattern, perfect size too. Traced off the pattern, using my lightbox (aka my back door - was asked why I taped the pattern to the glass) and stitched it while watching Time Team. It was almost perfect (my favourite word lately), I made it a little short for my liking. Hemming it would have made it too short so while I thought about what to do wore it and the skirt to the shops. The pattern is for a longer skirt but I wanted it shorter and cut off too much.

It only had to be 5 cms longer so I simply added a band of fabric later. Things I would do different for the next one is to rethink my elastic choice, the one I got didn't have a great rebound so it stayed a little too stretched. I'm thinking it's a little too old, it's not a great seller at work and had probably been sitting on the shelf for over 4 years.

There are several different styles, straight and tiered, fitted and elastic waisted, it's a great book with full sized patterns ready for tracing off the master pattern. The instructions are easy to follow. Have also made a tiered skirt which came together very well. I highly recommend this book