City Scene skirt

What do you do when you need to display a quilt panel?  Why it's obvious - you make a skirt!

picture borrowed from the Northcott site

This panel from Northcott (called City Scene) came into the store with some coordinating fabrics.  Our quilting guru was going to zip up a quilt top for display.  Unfortunately, she's been rather tied up.  Without a display piece, people just ignore this amazing piece of fabric.  I'm no quilt top maker, but I thought a skirt would look wonderful. (Actually, it would also look amazing as a quilted jacket ... but a skirt was just so much faster to produce.)

Nothing fancy ... 2 panels ... lengthened by adding one of the coordinating fabrics.  (I made this just about ankle length.)  Side zipper.  Big pleats to use up maximum width of the panel.  The other coordinate we have is used for the waistband, and because I'm thinking of this as an "evening" skirt - a belt with a big bow.

Sorry  - the picture turned out fuzzy

I think that this skirt is ready for a party - not quite yet, because it does have to hang at the store for a while.

Pamela’s Patterns – yet again

As usual, I’m teaching classes on t-shirts/cardigans this Fall, using Pamela’s Patterns.  And since I seem to find it necessary to make brand new samples every time, I’ve now taken to just making what I want for my closet rather than worrying about being true to the pattern.   And – I hope that people will get the idea that they can use their t-shirt pattern for more than just t-shirts, and that the cardigan patterns are just a starting point for all sorts of variations.

This dress (ITY knit) is the t-shirt pattern with a boat neck, cut off at the waist with an 8-gore skirt (self-drafted) added on.  Both are well-used patterns in my arsenal.  No worries about fit.  And I have a dress for the future instead of yet another t-shirt and skirt.  I also cobbled together a belt.  Not so sure that I love the belt, but for now, it works on the mannequin.

In the store display, the dress is topped with this cardigan.

It began with Pamela’s Draped Front Cardigan.  The front was extended, a collar extension drawn on, and the bottom hem was straightened out.  Oh – and I added pockets.

Need those pockets!  (Don’t know why it took me so long, but after umpteen versions of various cardigans, I realized that a cardigan absolutely needs to have pockets.)

They’re just cut in one with the back piece, then stitched to the front.  Only one added layer of thickness and nothing flopping around on the inside of the cardigan.

Love this cream fabric – it’s a bamboo sweatshirt fleece that we had at the store a few years back.  (I have no idea why it languished in my stash for so long – probably just waiting for the right inspiration.)  Now I can’t wait for this cardigan to come home.

Didn’t finish off the edges in any way – just stitched them down with a straight stitch.

I really must step up my blog post writing, or I’ll never get through my Fall class samples, and there has definitely been more sewing than that going on!