Tuesday 22 April 2014

Meringue Skirt and Materialise Sewing Club

After buying the Colette sewing handbook, I knew for sure that the Meringue skirt was going to be the fist thing that I would make from it. Out of everything in the book it is definitely that one that I would be most likely to wear on a regular basis. So, in the hope of getting it right and so I can make an even better version of it in the future, I decided to first make it up in this black cotton as a skirt for work before making it up in some nicer fabric (I guess it is what some would call a wearable toile). 


Complete- Colette Meringue Skirt
I have to admit that I was a little intimidated by the scallops before I started. I knew I had no problem sewing a curve so I think it was knowing that I was going to have to do a lot of clipping into the seam allowance that was scaring me a little. With this in the back of my mind I decided that this make would need a bit of moral support to get going. Luckily I started it at just the right time to join the first ever sewing club night at Materialise in Edinburgh. Materialise is a fairly new company who have been running dressmaking and sewing classes in the city for around 2 years now. Last year at the Edinburgh Science Festival I took their lampshade making class as posted here. After a great experience with the lampshade I thought that the sewing club would be a great way of finding out more about the company and meeting some new people. 

Photo from Materialise Facebook Page
Well I am so glad I went. I had some great chat with the other sewers and the Singer sewing machines that we were using were perfect, plus they had all the machine feet you could want (my pet peeve at the moment is my dressmaking class not having zipper feet). It was really refreshing to meet like minded people who knew about indie patterns, read blogs and had some really cool sewing ideas and projects. All helped along with some snacks, tea, wine and even a little bubbly (although we were told that was just to celebrate the first meeting). My skirt turned out to be a great project to take to the class as there wasn't to many parts to it. Someone even recognised what I was making just from the shape of the pattern pieces as she had made one last year. 
I didn't realise that there was still a pin in the hem when I took this photo,  just ignore it!
The all the encouragement and speaking to someone who had made the skirt before I felt far more confident about tackling those scallops and by the end of the night I had sewn the main skirt together, put the zip in, attached the scallop facings and clipped the curves for the back half of the hem. The next day I clipped the rest and got to ironing them all into shape. I used an old knitting needle to push the seams out and make sure everything was shaped nicely. 

Stitch sampler
After being inspired by a skirt that I saw on display at the Sewing for Pleasure show and also after the suggestion of one of the lovely ladies at the Materialise Sewing Club I decided to topstitch the edge of the scallops. Since getting my new machine at Christmas I haven't used any of the fancy stitches. So, to help decide which one was going to work best with the tight turns and curves of the scallop I made a little sampler of all the "fancy" stitches the machine has to offer. I quite like the effect of the all the stitches together so I am thinking that I might make another sampler in colours that will match my living room and then I can put it in a hoop and make it part of my hoop wallIn the end I went with this little daisy stitch in a contrasting white thread. I just sewed slowly and managed to do it all in one go avoiding all need to unpick. I think it turned out pretty fab.

Anyway, this is a great skirt and I will definitely make it again. I really like Lauren's (Lladybird) version with the piping along the waistband. The Colette how to draft a waistband for the Meringue skirt tutorial looks reasonably easy to follow so I think next time I will have to give it a try.


Ready for cutting 
Also as I had mentioned in my last post, I am really looking forward to the next Materialise sewing club night and I have already traced my Sew Me Something Voila skirt in anticipation.


PS - can you tell that I have just discovered Instagram! Expect some overly worked and filter photos in upcoming posts :-)

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