Monday, July 22, 2013

Sew a Wave Skirt - Full Sewing Tutorial

Today I am bringing home my first post as a contributor on Me Sew Crazy.

Welcome to my first Sewing Rabbit Creative Team tutorial and if you are the visual type I am pretty sure your are going to be satisfied after this post. It took me 27 photos to explain how to sew this skirt and I hope you will 'see' everything you need...and there is some text too for those types, haha!

So what are we making? This skirt!
You might remember the skirt from THIS pattern drafting tutorial? In the end of the post I promised a sewing tutorial....and here we go:
You need to use some fabric with a great drape. I have used cotton voile and was therefor forced to put a lining in too. But poplin would work great too and if it is not see through there is really no need for the lining. Up to you!
Since you are the one drawing the waves/curves on the skirt pattern, you can totally avoid this 'tricky' part by not having the middle part of the skirt go all the way down and become part of the hem. But I personally really like that detail. Juuuust saying.
*I made the first skirt (from the pattern drafting tutorial) with French seams on the curvy seams (because you know - or will find out - that I am annoying like that) but it kind of back fired. Like any other curvy seam they either needed small cuts (which I would only do on a totally hidden seam) or a more narrow seam allowance to make a smooth surface on the skirt. So I ended up having to stitch the seams on the first skirt which works okay but I would prefer it without. So this time I choose a way more simple solution. Sew and cut 2-3 mm of when overlocking. Worked like a charm!  

*Okay, this photo gets it's own space because you need to see this on a big photo. I have learned it from my friend Rikke who has learned it from her friend Line (we all have the same education from Denmark and you can imagine some geeky sewing conversation we can have!)
SO this is a trick to sew your lining/inner waistband/facing to an invisible zipper. It is actually super simple. You are probably used to placing the inner waistband - right against right side - and sewing down along zipper. Well you are still going to BUT first you are going to shift out your inner waistband so it sticks out 1 cm at the very top and 0.5 cm at the bottom of the waistband (see photo above). The rest of the way (the lining) you just do as usual and no shifting. And NOW you sew down along the zipper. See graphic stitches on photo above.
You will need to come a little bit further down in the tutorial before you see the point with the shifting....but I promise you that you won't be disappointed - ohhh, the pressure! 
And here you have it folks.....the result of the shifting.....look at the right photo above. It always makes me smile when I have used this technique because it just looks so clean and finished.
Well, so I guess the 'prize' you get for making it all the way down here is the reveal of what my next Sewing Rabbit Creative Team post is going to be about. Great! 

And you are in luck. The bias tape post is on Me Sew Crazy tomorrow July 23rd. I would love for you to come back and check it out.

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