Homemade Leila skirt | cont'd

Went ahead and did the hand stitching after all.

Lessons

It helps too much 3 much 4 much to baste the layers together first. In this case, machine sew it.   I did the first horizontal/circumference only pinned. It is fiddly and slow to the point of frustration that I decided I was not going to continue hand sewing on this garment.    I actually am not removing the machine line. It’s too subtle anyway.   Home job. 

This skirt, like many Alabama Chanin pieces I’ve done, gives me doubts while making it. It’s not that special or pretty. Kind of meh as you put it together.   But when together, with the finishing touches, does become something special. That’s the art they ace. That’s the reason I don’t stray far from a.c. designs or in fact just try to replicate it directly. Of course I try other ideas. They did too. But usually in the end I pull it back to what a.c did as a final product because they did all the designing, exploring and pulled it back to a really good finishing point. 

The length of this skirt is 28”, I remember now I didn’t vary that from the craftsy swing skirt pdf. Just changed the waist width and then redrew the angle from waist to hem.

The swing of this eight panel skirt produces what I am looking for from the Alabama Chanin Leighton skirt.   That will now be on the production line soon. The length it also what I’m looking for. It’s a practical length to sit many inches above the ankles.  

My classic long skirt which has its train just just just touches the ground is fine. But also stupid.   Really, do you want things dragging the ground while carrying 10kg groceries to the car in the rain?   Well good thing it only costs me tens of dollars to make these not USD$7000 because I did fumble. The skirt did drop a little lower and drag on the wet road for a while.   Studio photos of floor sweeping dresses are rubbish. 

Too me a couple of days to see why machine sewn colour block joins (the horizontals/circumferences) stuffed up the skirt. But not hand sewn...even when you use a double threaded needle. Looking at the inside out photo attached we see that the contact made between the thread and fabric is very small.  Even though on the right side the hand stitch looks very weighty, the wrong side shows the actual contact is minimal.  Whereas the machine sewn lines are constantly in contact with the fabric without interruption.    So choosing a light thread for the machine, and a stitch that is not dense, is ok.  

Materials used and price estimate

Less than two 3xl men’s organic black shirts, $12

Four 3xl men’s blue (plus procion dyed) sleeves only, $8

Eight xs men’s tanks (front only, where it was plain and not printed on) $12

Thread $5

Elastic $2

Total = $40

USD is I think/guess around 70% of that today. 

Good lighting moment; no filter needed to attempt accurate colour capature.

Saw while hand sewing that it became easier after a few stitches every time I used new thread.  The reason for this is because the two threads were getting conditioned every time it passed through the fabric.  So I ran my fingers along this thread before knotting it whenever I reloaded the needle.  It hasn't been necessary using my 2500m cones of M25 poly-cotton. Alabama Chanin terms this loving the thread. One thing I can't do is to use the word love in any sort of way.  In other countries if you tell someone you love them, you are ready to die for them.  It's not a term thrown around or used for obsessions and material things or casually gushing over somebody.  No matter how I look at it, the thread ain't gonna love me back no matter how much "love" I give it.  It will help my stitching because I first conditioned it.  But it ain't no love relationship.  

However the practice I like, which the author of a.c. teaches while conditioning the thread, is the blessing of the garment and the wearer.  A modern seer has said recently that garments carry attitudes and words of the wearer.  Although I am not in the practice enough of blessing the garment, I should loose off all frustrations, negative attitudes, and also instead regularly and bless the garment and the wearer.  These things can seem like a lot of extras but our words will be powerful.  We won't be wasting energy.  We will have energy to easily to do the right things, which before were like a chore. 

Alabama Chanin Leila skirt knock off

Stitches get bigger spacing towards hem because I don't have time to linger on this skirt.  Home quality and home leeways. 

Inside out details.

Machine zig zag can be adjusted in size.  Faster hand sewing tip - should baste this way next time and use machine sewn on zig zag lines to guide hand sewing.  I could have hand sewn directly over the machine lines had the machine lines been well chosen.