Picasso had his blue period; I am in the midst of my black skirt period. You see, I started 3 black skirts when I was enrolled in the Open Sewing Lab class at Lake Washington Technical College last year. I was trying to use up a bit of my stash, and some black linen and black wool crepe started to morph into skirts. Yes, I buy a lot of black fabric. I like black. It looks good on me. It is my wardrobe basic neutral. I don’t wear brown; I only wear black.
So there you have it – the story of how 3 black skirts in one season began. My 2 black wool crepe skirts originally appeared on this blog as part of the Sewing Marathon Weekend post, and both are made from Vogue 7937. Finally, one of them is wearable! I love, love, love the fishtail back on this skirt – it’s a little bit vintage and a lot of awesome-ness. I like the variety of views in this pattern, and didn’t find any glitches or special challenges with it.
I am trying to challenge myself to learn a new technique from a reference on every garment I make these days. For this skirt, I used a lining technique in the Threads Easy Guide to Sewing Linings book, and I am really happy with the way it turned out. Instead of attaching the lining to the waist seam, it is stitched to the facing edge and then tacked down around the zipper and hemmed separately. It was easy, and I think it looks very RTW. The pattern did not include any lining pattern pieces, so I used the skirt pattern pieces and cut off an inch or so from the top edge after I assembled the lining. What do you think of the red? I love using a different lining color than the arment – just for a little sass.  🙂 The little black-and-white-check is a tab for the hook – the eye is on the lapped side of the zipper Â
The hem turnback was a little shorter than I like, even tho I added an extra inch to the pattern, so I added some rayon seam binding to provide a nice finish and get a bit more length. I practised my catchstitch too! Since I had underlined the skirt with black silk organza, it provided the perfect layer to hold the hemming stitches as well as the basting stitches down all the the seam allowances. Very fancy pants, huh?
I can’t wait to wear this skirt – I think it is a great design and I am overall happy with the construction. Happy sewing!
 Maris Olsen