Friday, January 16, 2009

Angry Chicken skirt

I finally found time to finish a project! It took a couple of weeks, but I got around to making the Angry Chicken skirt. I love the concept of this skirt; the shape is pretty flattering and is very trendy, but unless you are an advanced seamstress, I would say this skirt definitely takes longer than 5 minutes. Of course, I don't have a serger, so I had to hem it the conventional way, and since I am still learning modern hemming techniques (previously knowing only how to hem 19th century style :), the hemming part alone took me several hours, but I think I have finally conquered modern hemming on the bias!

The fold-over-elastic waist is too cute, but watch the tutorial closely and practice it first. I found that it stretched much more than indicated on the blog and I needed to undercut my waist measurement by about 8 inches to fit it properly. That being said, FOE is a wonderfully easy finish and I will definitely use it in the future. My only recommendation there would be to buy it already dyed in the color you like. I spent hours trying to dye white FOE the correct color and it unraveled something terrible (unlike the FOE description on the blog). Clearly, the FOE used by Angry Chicken is a completely different animal that what I purchased at my local quilting shop.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the skirt and the florally light green color makes me think of spring! Always a pleasant thought on a wintry day that hovered around freezing! BRRR!

The 19th century dress shirt is coming along. The gussets and sleeves are completed and I am working on hand-sewing the linings. I love the way it is looking but it sure is a lot of work! I like hand-sewing as I find it relaxing, but it certainly does slow down my productivity! I'm probably going to have to set it aside as I need to finish some small projects for our period dinner next weekend.

I also cut out my 1930s skirt, so hopefully I will squeeze in time to work on it too. So many fun projects and so little time!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh!! I love your skirt!!!!!!

Mrs. G said...

Both the skirt and the shirt look fabulous! I need to get back to sewing, if I lose my momentum then it can be hard to get back in the swing again.

Paris

Emily2651 said...

Cute!

MissNonaEleanor said...

Cute Skirt Lissa!

I saw that Fold over Elastic on that blog the other day and I thought it was pretty cool too! I love the little slip she made. Now I just need to find some FOE! Where did you get yours? I don't think I've seen it at JoAnn's before.

~Nona

lissawi said...

Thanks ladies!

Nona -

I found the FOE at Pacific Fabrics and Crafts, but they only have white & black. It is dyeable, but I'm not sure its worth it. Next time I think I'll just order it from the supplier she lists on the blog - SewZannes. HTH!