Conquered

DuBarry 5551 skirt completed.

The front and back pieces are the same.  Less than a yard of fabric was used.  It no complicated techniques required.

But never has such a simple pattern caused as much angst.  I think I spent as long sewing it as I did on the steampunk skirt with the flat felled seams.  Seriously, this should have been a breeze.

It wasn’t.

It was my fault that these problems occurred!

Let this be a lesson to all those out there reading this.  Make sure you have your most correct and up to date measurements before beginning any project.  Then make sure you review the pattern measurements before making changes to the pattern.  One should also review the pattern instructions to see what is necessary to put the pattern together before making adjustments to the pattern.  Also think seriously if the fabric you are chooising is, in fact, the best fabric for the pattern again before cutting into the fabric. Then, finally, if you make a mess of things feel free to throw the offending fabric across the room in anger…..no wait….make that put it to one side and  return to it when you have a clearer head.

Check out the grey patent leather shoes!
Ignore the bad hair....again.

 All in all, I now like the skirt.  It is still a skosh big but definitely wearable.  I love the cadet blue twill fabric.  I actually think that now this is complete, it might get a lot of wear.  So to paraphrase the Bard….alls well that ends well as long as you don’t end up with a bubble – butted skirt.


I wanted to try the top that goes with the skirt but I think I will wait a while before tackling that.

DuBarry Revisited

Remember this skirt? 

I tossed it aside sometime in April.  Well….I didn’t actually toss it aside.  What I did was pin it to one of my dressforms in the hope that if I had to look at it every day, I would be forced to deal with it.  As opposed, it putting it into a bag and forgetting about it.

Well, today was the day I tackled it!  I tried it on and thought….you know it doesn’t look that bad.  Why not finish it and say to heck with it?  So after some fiddling around with the gathers, I determined it was just too big.  I did increase the skirt to fit my hip which, at the time, were bigger than the skirt.  Not so now.  I ended up taking 3 inches off the width of the skirt, 1 1/2 inch each side!  It started to look a little better, so I cut out a waistband; a waistband 4 inches bigger than my waist.  I thought it would be sufficient.

While trying to attach the waistband I discovered yet another problem with the skirt….it was still too big.  The waistband was 2 inches too small for the waist of the skirt.  No wonder it looked odd on.  Recall, I already took out 3 inches and now another 2 need to go.

Next step was taking out the gathers.  I am re-doing the gathers so that more area is taken up.  I hope that this solves the problem and I am on my way to a new skirt!

1940’s Skirt

This is the pattern I am using

This little skirt with the same front and back piece is proving to be challenging.  I thought I needed to add a little bit around the hips based on the hip measurement on the envelope.  Good idea?  Nope because I forgot to re-measure myself.  All the running I have been doing has whittled an inch or so off of my hips.  Yay!  But I had already added to the skirt and cut the fabric.  Oops!

Second problem is the back piece is the same as the front piece and that does not seem to be working for me.  I would like to blame the rather stiff fabric.  But nope, can’t do that!  When I try on the skirt, the front looks great and the back looks like a big old bubble. Because I assume I did something wrong to one piece, I flip the skirt around, since the front is the back, and but it is the same thing – front looks nice and there is just too much fabric in the back.

Nice blue.  If only I can make this work
for me!

I do not know what you do in these situations, but I just throw the project aside and think about starting something new.  Some thoughts have occurred to try and fix the situation.  Both pieces have gathers on either hip so it does not seem as if a dart could be added.  What I may do instead, since I added about 2 inches to the width of the skirt is cut the back up the middle and put in a seam with the hopes of manipulating the seam to get a better fit.

Do you think this will work?  I have only a few days to finish my April skirt.

The Skirt with One Piece

Next up is Du Barry 5551 with a copyright date of 1943.

Unfortunately, this pattern was
in this condition when I
purchased it.  I wonder what
ate the envelope

I wanted to give this skirt a try to see if I liked it because I wanted to make a little summer suit with this pattern.  Also, I am running out of time to make my April skirt.

See, one main piece.  Odd!  I get the
need to save fabric but this does not
do that

Turning the pattern over, imagine my surprise when there is just one piece for both the front and back of this skirt.  Let me explain, the same pattern piece is both the front and the back.  Wait….there is a waistband so two pieces.  But the important bit is just one piece.

   Huh?  Really?  How is this going to work