I learn things about invisible zippers, and stretch knit!
This skirt was super fun to make. Its shape is awesome, though you can’t see it with the large-scale pattern. And it twirls beautifully. And if there’s one thing I love, its a twirly skirt.
For this skirt I tried something brilliant. See, I suck at zippers, I’ve always sucked at zippers. They end up crooked and far too visible for something sold as an “invisible zipper.” I’ve also always scoffed at buying a special zipper foot made specifically for this brand of invisible zippers. What a rip-off, right! I mean, my mother’s sewing machine came with a nice solid metal zipper foot, and it lasted her for years and years. Why would I pay for something that looks all plastic and crappy and is probably just and excuse for the company to get more money from you? Oh, right, because in fact it is actually necessary to getting the zipper in correctly. Yep, that’s right, I finally bought a Coats&Clark brand invisible zipper foot, and it works perfectly. Well I feel dumb, but hey, I finally got smart and can put a zipper in straight and true now! Lesson learned: The people who make the zippers probably know what they’re talking about.
To balance my one smart move this skirt, I also did something fairly stupid. The fabric is our spoonflower knit, which is a one-directional stretch knit. That means that it stretches in one direction along the fabric, but not the other. When cutting out the pieces, I was considering the direction of the printed pattern, and not the stretch direction. So while I love that the leaves point up and down along the skirt, the stretchy direction is actually horizontal. This means that every time I wore the skirt, the waist stretched out a little more. At this point the skirt is actually kind of unwearable without a saftey pin. Lesson learned: stretchiness actually matters.
However, I absolutely love the pattern for this skirt, and will definitely be remaking it in something that doesn’t stretch. And it WILL have a perfect zipper in it.
The fabric is Holli Zollinger’s Tree Heart’s Grape, and the pattern is Vogue’s V8750.
