Happy Me-Made-May, everyone!
For those of you out there who don't obsessively read sewing blogs, Me-Made-May is a time for sewists (I'm following the lead of others and not referring to people who sew as sewers) to celebrate their handmade garments. Many sewists make pledges, such as promising to wear at least one handmade garment every day in May. Many people put pictures of their me-made outfits on their blogs or Instagram. I didn't make any pledges myself, but since my collection of me-made clothing has grown slightly since this time last year, I've found myself making an effort to wear some of the things I've made this month. Me-Made-May has also encouraged me to think about what I want to get out of sewing as a hobby and what sorts of gaps I have in my closet currently (knit tops that don't cling relentlessly to my midriff and button-up shirts that don't gap open anywhere are high on my list!).
With that being said, my life's little triumph for Me-Made-May was making a very specific garment that I've been trying to buy from stores for the past couple of summers: a charcoal gray knit maxi skirt.
There were a number of problems with trying to purchase a ready-to-wear charcoal gray knit maxi skirt. The first problem is my height. Unless I buy maxi skirts that are designated as "tall" sizes, the skirt will end an awkward few inches above my ankles. Needing to buy "tall" maxi skirts already limits the retailers I can shop from.
The color charcoal gray turned out to be another problem. For solid colored maxi skirts, black seems to be the most popular color, with navy blue a distant second. In terms of gray, all I ever saw was light heather gray (think of the color you often say on men's gray t-shirts), which wasn't what I wanted.
The final challenge is that a good number of knit maxi skirts are designed in such a way that they cling to the wearer's derriere, showing undie lines devastatingly clearly. This I don't understand at all. I realize that not everyone has my height issues with clothing, and that not everyone wants the same colors of clothing that I do. But I'm pretty sure that NOBODY wants visible panty line, much let alone extremely visible panty line! This raises the interesting question of why such skirts are being produced in the first place.
So I decided to take the plunge and try making the skirt I wanted. Even though it's technically a very simple project, it felt like a stretch in my skills because I only recently started sewing with knit fabrics at all and I had only made t-shirts up until that point. I opted for buying a pattern rather than using one of the online tutorials for drafting your own knit maxi skirt, which I actually think was a mistake because the sizing was way off, which I tried on the waistband for size and discovered I was swimming in it. After removing quite a bit of fabric, I ended up with a skirt that fit. I wore it to work the other day, and I'm happy to report that it didn't fall down even once. :) There is still plenty of room for me to improve my sewing, but it's nice to think that now I can choose projects more based on my clothing needs rather than (lack of) technical skills.
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