Portia Lawrie

cynthia rowley 2512, finished garments, Fitting, pattern adjustments

FO – Denim Cynthia Rowley 2512

Further to my previous incarnation of this make, I thought I’d have another stab at it. I cut the previous one to a 14 at the waistband, and whilst it fit, it felt a little too generous. So I opted to cut this one at a 12 at the waistband. Apart from the size, there were a few tweaks that I wanted to make to this pattern. Whilst I liked the gathered element of this skirt, the “poofiness” around the abdomen and backside was a little too exaggerated for me to be entirely happy with it for everyday, practical wear. I wanted to tone it down a bit. So I tapered the side seams on both the front and back skirt pieces. Starting at a 16 at the hem and tapering to a 12 at the waist…

Anyone who has made this pattern will recognise the trapeze shape of the front skirt piece once it’s been cut out. All of that with along the top is converted to gathers (or pleats if you’re me!) and that translates to volume. Around the abdomen ladies! Not a place most of us want to add volume! At least not to the extremes of this pattern, and certainly not with my mummy tummy! Essentially, all I did was tone the angle down a bit. The red lines/arrows mark where I cut so you get an idea of what I removed from the original pattern.  You can see that this has the effect of removing width  at the waist; width that would otherwise have been gathered and translated into “poofiness”…..

I made this adjustment to both the front and back pattern pieces. So when all told, it added up to around 4″ of overall gathering removed from around the abdomen area. Which feels so much more flattering (and I’m told looks so too :). This new version still retains that “tulip” shape that originally drew me to the design, but in a much more subtle, and hopefully more flattering way.
On the downside, despite being prewashed and seeming really good; this denim actually creases like hell during proper wear. But I’m hoping a few more washes will soften it up some!
Overall though, pretty pleased 🙂
Have you tried this pattern and found it too “poofy” for your liking? Is “poofiness” even a word?!

cynthia rowley 2512, finished garments, refashioning, Thrifting

FO – Cynthia Rowley Skirt – 2512

I mentioned an FO last week that I had to share with you. Well here it is. My second attempt at Cynthia Rowley 2512, except this one, I finished!

You may recognise the fabric from this post. Yep. I made a skirt from curtains….and I love it. This fabric is a vintage screen print by Wemco entitled “Antibes” and was way too nice to use for home furnishings! It’s the perfect weight for a skirt like this.

Construction wise I used the waistband from View C with the skirt construction from View A. I hand picked my zip (I just can’t seem to get a decent finish with machined zips!), used black bias on the hem and waistband; and black fabric from my stash for the pockets and waistband facing. I also lengthened the skirt by about 1.5″.

I opted for pleating instead of gathering the skirt along the waistband. Again, I just can’t seem to get a pleasing effect with gathering and nine times out of ten my gathering thread breaks, which just ends up p****ng me off! I might try sewing my gathering stitches by hand with a stronger (embroidery?) weight thread and see how that goes.

The pattern didn’t call for a bias finish to the top of this waistband and to me it looks a bit obvious that it isn’t supposed to be there. But my feed dogs decided to chew up the fabric a little around the zip. Cheers for that! (I guess you never know how a fabrics gonna behave until you get to sewing with it) So I used the bias to disguise it and protect it from any more fraying. A shame, but there we go!

Overall a pleasing and straightforward pattern to work with. If anything I may cut a size smaller next time.  I’m already pondering whether to use some denim I have in my stash  for another of these OR maybe use it for a Ginger? Hmmmm…..What say ye?