The skirt that didnt work - Pink Delphine

Check out my lovely version of the Delphine skirt, the 3rd make in Tilly Walnes Love at First Stitch book for beginner sewers. I am so pleased with the skirt its beautiful and a triumph, its just such a shame that I'm never going to wear it. Why? I'll get to that in a minute, lets start with the positives shall we.

The skirt is made from a lovely baby pink cotton chambray which I bought from eBay. I've never sewn using Chambray before but its a lovely woven to sew with. Its crisp and clean and glides through the machine. Definitely a good fabric for a starter. Chambray also comes in a few lovely colours (and patterns) now as well rather than just the usual pale blue denim effect. Now I am one of those people who has to wear tights with skirts and dresses pretty much all year round and woven's don't lend themselves well to this, they tend to stick and ride up as the day goes on so I lined it! Tilly has done a lovely little tutorial on her blog for lining this exact skirt, so I followed the pattern instructions and the ones on the blog and I have to say they were really clear and helpful and I didn't have any troubles whatsover. Yay! Its not very obvious to see the lining in the picture below but it is there. I used some of the lovely cheap shiny  'lining fabric' in a matching pink.

This section of the book had us learning how to insert an invisible zip. This wasn't my first time but I appreciated the crash course and am really pleased with this one, its sewn in beautifully and all the seams are level which is always the tricky bit with any zip. The other thing I am really pleased with is the hem on this skirt. Honestly I think its the best hem I have ever stitched, I'm so proud of it.

So why am I never going to wear it? Well, its all in the waistband. I made this to measure and the bottom of the band sits perfectly where it's meant too but the top sticks out A LOT and doesn't sit flat against my waist at all. I know its because I am one of those lucky people to have an actual hourglass figure but it means my waist isn't straight at the side. I think this could be quiet easily rectified by halving the height of the waistband so its a lot thinner and as a result sits on a smaller area of my waist. It's just a shame I can't really do anything about that now. I am a little sad about it, it does just make this whole thing look a little bit awkward. But one of the skirts further in the book has the same waistband so hopefully I can fix this issue for making that one. This is how you learn about tailoring to fit your body shape though right. Lets live and learn and move on :)

The next pattern in the series is the Megan dress which has a fitted bodice, flared skirt (not unlike this one) and some sleeves. This is going to be a fun one to tackle, I've never fitted a sleeve in before and I'm going to have to do a full bust adjustment on the bodice. So watch this space, lets see how we get on.

Have you ever made anything that you loved but for whatever reason just didn't work? poor fabric choice, fit issues or something entirely different. Share your faux pas with me, go on!