2. Chocolate Corduroy Skirt - Built By Wendy (Sew U)

I was able to salvage the brown corduroy skirt I first worked on in January and February last year. I guess it's only fitting that I finally finish it this January.

Pattern: Basic skirt pattern (from the Built By Wendy Sew U book)

Pattern Description: Fitted straight skirt with contoured waist.

Pattern Sizing: Medium

Were the instructions easy to follow? Yes, very much.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? It has a great shape and fit (when made as directed.)

Fabric Used: Chocolate brown wide-wale corduroy from my stash (at least 10 yrs old), recycled Ann Taylor Loft brown corduroy jeans, black lining material, 7" brown regular zipper, and Seams Great. No money was spent, everything was from my stash!
Chocolate wide wale (main), tobacco brown narrow wale (insert panel)

Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made: This is my second version of the skirt in the Sew U book. The first one still fits perfectly. My mistake this time was to taper the pattern to alter the A-line to a straight skirt. Unfortunately, I started the cutting line too far up and could not get the resulting skirt over my hips. While I thought about adding fabric panels to the skirt at the time I didn't actually get around to doing that until last month. (No surprise, right?)

I started this as a quick project to use up fabric from my stash. I even decided to interline it for insulation and finish the back zipper seam with Seams Great to make the inside look nice. So it was very disappointing when it didn't work out. In order to fix the skirt I looked at using Jo Ann's wide wale corduroy but it was not as nice as the stash fabric. My corduroy is a rich chocolate color and has a gorgeous sheen. I did; however, have a pair of old brown corduroys I was keeping for scrap fabric, so I decided to use that. The color doesn't match, it is dull in comparison, and is a narrower wale. However, I'm going to pass it off as a "design element."



For the side inserts, I created narrow, elongated triangular shapes the length of the skirt. Therefore, there are two seams at each side. The four seams were graded and at the top where it was most narrow the two innermost seam allowances were clipped close and catch stitched one on top of the other to reduce bulk at the waistband. The remainder of the seams were zigzagged stitched.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? Yes! However, I will double check if I make any other alterations to the base pattern.

Conclusion: For free, I now have a slim skirt with side contrast tuxedo stripes in a gorgeous rich brown that looks like velveteen because of the fabric's luster.

Images: my own photos