Pants on Fire

Last week, although I didn't state it outright, I did strongly insinuate that I would be finishing Capri over the long weekend.  Alas, I just couldn't find the patience to sit and sew on twelve #10 snaps.  I did, however, find the patience to do this:

I love this print - it reminds me so much of a
Vera motif.

What have we here?  Another Sorbetto?  Yes, but this time with a matching skirt!

A couple weeks ago, in the midst of Sorbetto Fever and high on the fumes of $2.99 per yard cotton lawn, I bought a yard and a half of this along with a few other goodies, intending them all as Sorbetti.  After I washed them, as I was ironing this offset plaid, I thought what a great skirt it would make.  So of course the next day I went back and got two more yards - wouldn't you?

I then proceeded to hem and haw for two weeks.  Should I make a dress?  Should I make a separate top and skirt?  Which skirt?  And how to line it?  Truthfully, each night as I was going to sleep I would mull over what I wanted to do with this lovely fabric.

On Sunday night I finally made up my mind, and spent the entire day on Monday sewing.

The top is your basic Sorbetto with no modifications.  The only way this one is different from the others I've made is that I turned the bias tape to the inside so that the print isn't interrupted on the outside of the garment.

The skirt is a mash-up of Colette Patterns' Ginger and Gertie's Full Skirt Tutorial.  I used the straight waistband pieces from the Ginger skirt rather than "draft" my own a la Gertie, because I like where the waistband of the Gingers hits me, and my cunning plan is to wear it with an elastic belt I bought from Anthropologie last summer.  The lining too is just a Ginger skirt made of plain muslin - nice and heavy, to give some structure to the floaty lawn on the outer skirt, for which I followed Gertie's instructions.  I want to state here (mostly for myself, because I'm likely to forget) that her 40" wide pieces gave me exactly the amount of pouf with this fabric that I wanted.  (For the curious, I generally wear a size 4 in RTW, which will give you a basis for comparison if you are interested in making this one as well.)

I was having some fun with my lining.

I wasn't really sure how long I wanted the skirt to be, so I just cut the fabric in half (it was either 54" or 60" wide - I didn't measure) and left the selvedge edge at the bottom.  When it was all finished and I'd hemmed the lining a little shorter than my other Gingers, I tried it on and pinned it up to where I wanted it to be.  I ended up taking it up 3.5", and then folding it back an inch and a half and doing a blind hem stitch on my machine.  So it's got a nice, wide hem that gives a little stability to the pouf.  Finished length is 22.5" exclusive of the waistband,  and it hits me just below the knee.

I'm mostly happy with how this turned out, and the parts I'm not happy with won't be visible to anyone but me.  I think my interfacing must have been too heavy for the lawn, because the waistband became crinkly when I ironed it.  But remember, it's going to be covered up by that cool belt.  And I had a hard time attaching the facing to the invisible zipper; it's not my neatest work, but no one else will see it.  Of course, the Colette Blog had a post on exactly how to do it the following day.  Isn't that always the way?!

OK:  now back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Time to sew those snaps on the Capri!