Denim Moss Jean Skirt

Yes, it's another denim Moss Skirt, and yes, I'm still working my way through the same length of stretch denim bought from Coventry market (in fact I still have enough left to make a pair of Maritime Shorts for the summer - hooray!), but I did make some changes to make this skirt distinctly different from my last denim Moss (blogged here).

I was going for that 'authentic' jean skirt look so I left off the hem band, lengthened the skirt piece by 4 and a half inches (which is about the width of the hemband and used golden brown topstitching thread to double stitch all the flat felled seams and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

I wanted back pockets this time so I looked out the pattern piece from the Maritime Shorts pattern which worked perfectly.  I had to guess when it came to placement, and I might have sewn them a little too wide apart, but I'm pretty happy with them all the same.

Clearly should have ironed it before taking these photos!  Anyway, I'm glad to have iphone sized pockets on this one.  

I used a 6 inch metal YKK zip for the fly, bought from Hobbycraft.  The buttonhole was a total nightmare!! No matter how many practice buttonholes I did I could NOT get it to work on the garment itself.  Typical!  I think it probably had something to do with the thickness of the denim and the seam allowances on the waistband, but boy, I had a fight on my hands even to achieve this half decent buttonhole, and even then I had to touch it up by hand with a needle and thread.  As usual I used a contrast fabric (I think this is a poly cotton) for the pockets and bound all the visible seams with bias binding.  I made a huge error (HUGE!) on the waistband.  After being so careful to make sure I attached it the right way up this time, I realised I had cut out, interfaced and sewn on the wrong fabric for the facing. The wrong fabric!!  And it really clashed!  How did I not notice?  I considered leaving it, but in the end I unpicked it all and cut out another waistband facing in the fabric that matched the pocket bags.  So glad I did!  

The hem was another almost disaster. On my first attempt I cut the bottom of the skirt to an inch longer than I wanted the final length and turned up twice to make a small, half inch hem, which I then double topstitched to match the flatfelled seams.  It wasn't till I tried the skirt on (thinking it finished) that I realised that the denim had completely stretched out, leaving the skirt with a fluted hem that stuck out from the rest of the skirt.  Gutted!  I wasn't immediately sure how to fix it, or if I could fix it at all now that the fabric was stretched, but in the end I took my husband's advice to to unpick it and try ironing it back into shape.  A good steam did seem to help in shrinking it back, but on the second attempt I took a different approach.

To stop the fabric stretching out again I interfaced the bottom inch and a half of the fabric.  I also bound the raw edge so that I could single fold a slightly wider hem without losing any of the length.  I basted this time on a long stitch before topstitching and that seemed to work a lot better.   I gave it all a final blast with the iron and now it's pretty straight.  Phew!   I will be more careful when i comes to sewing hems on stretch fabric in future!

I think I can definitely now call the Moss Skirt my first TNT pattern (tried and true, meaning I have the fit requirements worked out and can depend upon the finished garment to come out well).  It's just such a wearable style and I'm really glad to have this skirt finished in time for Me Made May '15.  I know it's going to be in regular rotation!

As a bonus here are the outtakes featuring my little helper.   A camera on timer is an irresistible draw!