50s rockabilly fishtail skirt

hello everybody,

It was a while since my last post, but finally here it is: a skirt in the 50ties style but with a modern twist, my idea was to make sort of a fishtail skirt.

For the skirt I am going to use a black polyester/ cotton blend, red lining and some old trousers with a gingham pattern.

 

 

 

The base of the skirt is a slim pencil skirt. I flat drafted the pattern, because I have learned this method in school and desperately wanted to try it.

 

 

 

I cut the pattern out in the black and red fabric on the fold, each two times.

 

Then I marked the Darts I had 4 in the back and 2 in the front, I also did this on the lining ( the lining gets always treated the same as the main fabric)

 

I sewed all the darts and the side seam on one side. The same for the lining as well.

 

Then I closed the other side seam but left approx. 25 cm open to insert the zipper there later on

Before attaching the lining I did finish all my seams with a narrow zic-zac stitch, since I don´t have a serger, but this method has grown on me, mainly because it is the recommended method from the  original instructions of the maschine from 1959, so if it worked back then it´ll work for me

Then I connected the lining and main skirt togehter with a straight stitch 0,5 cm from the upper edge

 

So the next part was rather tricky, so I don´t have much photos, but I´ll try to explain it best as I can.

 

Since I left the 25 cm open for the Zipper on both pieces I had raw edges here, I could have just finished them with a zic-zac as well, but I wanted to try something else:

I flipped the skirt inside out, that ll the edges and darts face outwards. Then I pinned the the raw edges togehter. S ot looked like this:

 

 

When pinned I sewed 2 cm away from the edge, (This was my whole seam allowance, I did that because the skirt was a bit wide, if you would want the exact same width then you would have to only sew 1 cm, ecuase the zipper needs one as well)

 

For the end I stopped right before the seam and sewed it close by hand.



Then I flipped it back on tje right side and the seams are hidden on the inside. Then I pinned the Zipper and sewed it in. This is an invisible Zipper, which means it Need to be sewn ony with the teetht facing away drom the slit, but there are plenty of tutorial, where this process gets explained better.

When the zipper was inserted, I was time to work on the waistband and the ruffled hem, for that I wanted to use an other fabric, which was kinda unconevtional. since I was in a school for tourism, I had these pants for cooking at home and I liked the pattern, sooo I decided to cut the pants and make something new.

 



 

So for the waistband I two strips with my waist- measurements.

The strips got connected by side seams, then the black and gingham one got sewn together.

The Gingham strips gets folded in by 1cm and then sewn down with basting stitches, which will eventually be removed again.

 

I sewed the waistband 4 cm away from the top edge to the skirt, these 4 cm were  2cm seam allowance and the other 2 cm got reduced so the waistband will sit in the right spot.

First I sewed the black side on with the right side facing the lining.

Then I cut the excess  fabric away and left only about 1 cm. After that I flipped the whole waistband to the other side and sewed the edge of the gingham strip down.

So now for the ruffle, I decided to finish the the hem of the ruffle with narrow bias tape, So I needed approx. 2 meter of bias tape. The other unironed bias cut strip  will be for some piping.

 

I basically sewed it on the same way as the waistband. first the right to the left side, then flipped it out and finsihed it with a another seam

 

I am making the piping relatively simple. I took some cotton cord and wrapped the bias strip around it and sewed it down with the support of a zipper foot.

Then I started on the hem of the skirt. I wanted to make it asymetrical, first I tried it on and marked it with pins, then made a chalk line and cut it there.

Since the red lining frays a lot, I hemmed that first with a 1/2 cm hem. First pinned it carefully, then sewed it down.

Back to the ruffle, I finished the vertical edges by hand, so there isn´t any visible topstitching.

 

With a running stitch i gathered the fabric, I used the tiny squares as a guide for my stitches, which was quite handy,

 



The waistband the fastened with 2 hooks and eyes:

 



 

Then I sewed the rufflle on and sandwitched the piping  between

the skirt and ruffle. I pinned it toegther very carfully and moved the folds around till there were even.

 

And I also sewed it really slow and careful, and just like for the piping I used a zipper foot, so I could get really close to the piping.

 



The seam allowance wasn´t finíshed, just cut with pinking scissors. and then pinned upwards and stitched down , as  close as posible to the piping..
at the very end I also stitched the two ends of the piping together by hand.

 



At last I sewed 2 fake leather Buttons on, just for decoration.

 

 

with that finished, the skirt is ready to be worn and here are two photos of me wearing it: